Graverobber had finally dragged himself over to the bed and was leaning against it; he couldn't bring himself to lift himself onto it. His whole body throbbed off beat with his heart, its constant pounding the only reminder of its existence. Buried deep in the back of his throat, under the blisters and the blood, was a scream built of all his frustrations and fear. Luigi had left a little while ago, unlatching his shackles and leaving the bloody mess that used to be a bright young girl on the other side of the room. Her little white shirt was balled up on the floor near the door and that little purple skirt was stained nearly black with blood and torn to shreds.
He'd failed her.
Once again a vibrant life, the light of girl he cared about nearly more then his own life had been violently snuffed out while he looked on, helpless.
Useless.
"What've I done?" he growled to himself, voice rough from the burns, "This wasn't…she was never supposed ta be..anywhere…" He lashed out in pained rage and punched the floor with his good arm, splitting open his knuckles and failing to make himself feel any better at all. Graverobber's head swam with pain as he heard a soft, echoing set of footsteps coming closer and closer until they stopped in front of him. A familiar voice whispered from above him,
"I spy…with my little eye…" Graverobber snapped his head up, vertigo blackening his vision for a moment,
"Who's there, stay back!" his sight finally came back and the sight before him nearly caused him to topple over backwards. The infamous Blind Mag stood before him, the feathers on the skirt of her corset nearly so close that they could have brushed his face. She looked just as she had when he'd last seen her above the stage during her last performance. There were even bits of fake snow still clinging to her hair and the blood was still fresh looking on her cheeks from her valiant defiance of Rotti. She looked down at him with empty sockets, her expression the same beautiful somber she put on ever since she'd gotten Marni's eyes.
"So, did you have her cure?"
"Maggie-bird? How?" Graverobber had known Mag way back when she was still waiting for the perfect transplant for the Cornea Plus. He'd fallen hard at the time, a young Graverobber, completely smitten with the older woman, her perfection enhanced by her "flaw". He remembered the painful way they'd parted and his secret vow to never force her to perform alone.
He'd even been there when Rotti killed her.
Graverobber rubbed his face with his hand and tried to think past the hazy wall in his brain. The motion tore open his lips again and he cursed,
"That was stupid…" he glanced back up at Mag and tried to give her his trademark smirk, "You always did turn me into an awkward little boy, didn't ya, Maggie-bird?" The fact that he was talking to a dead woman didn't bother him at all; during all his years haunting the bone yards he'd seen stranger things then the visions of the dearly departed. The thing that bothered him was that she was here, now; after everything that had happened to her beloved god-daughter and she'd barely given the body a backwards glance.
She is blind, you idiot.
Then how could she find me?
"And you always had a way of trying to avoid the issues at hand." Mag answered him.
"There's no avoiding this time, is there?" Graverobber stared at the floor just to the side of Mag's feet, hating the defeatist tone his voice had but not able to stop himself, "Two days 'nd my brains are gonna be splattered across the same stage they killed you on…bastards…" He looked up at her, still not completely believing she was here with him, Mag shook her head slowly a few flakes of "snow" shaking loose and landing on the ground.
"A fitting end for the King of the Underworld. Louis XVI was killed on the most popular stage in Paris." She paused, "He didn't put up a fight either." Graverobber started to chuckle darkly at the first half of her comment,
"Onna the times that being the Zydrate K-" the last half finally caught up with his brain, "Didn't put up a fight? You come across to insult me, Maggie? Call me a coward on top of everything else?"
"When did the word coward escape my lips?" she asked in that calm, chiding tone that she had. The tone he both loved and hated. She knelt down before him, she was still as beautiful as ever, eyes or no, "How did you ever get here?"
"Old grudges, scorned lovers…" Graverobber looked away, unable to meet that lovely face, "I'm sorry, Maggie-bird…she was my last chance to do somethin' right… 'nd I watched him…" silently cursing the scream-filled lump in his throat, he swallowed and tried again, "Did her about as much good as I did you, didn't I?"
"Paying such a fee for the mistakes of others?" she asked.
"If I'd never found her again after the graveyard…hell if I hadn't drawn attention ta myself 'nd her…maybe none of this…" Graverobber couldn't stop himself until Mag interrupted him,
"There you go, giving yourself all the credit!" she chuckled a little, a nice sound that he cherished all the more because he heard it so seldom. That chuckle also told him how stupid he was being, he shook his head a little and half smirked,
"Sorry, after what I've been listenin' to recently the fact that the sun never shines on this gods forsaken island's my fault so…"
"Then give them the moon, Zydrate King." She said; her tone even but the inflection was fiercer then he'd ever heard it. Much as he liked that advice, there wasn't a lot he could do at this point. There was one thing he could do; he finally looked up at Mag, letting his eyes trace the curves of her face.
"Is she safe over there? Hell, are YOU safe over there?"
"No need to worry about me. As you can see," she stood and spread her arms low, letting him get a full view of her bloody visage, "I am doing just fine." She smiled at him before kneeling again, "But who is this 'she'?" Graverobber stared at her like she'd gone insane,
"The kid, yer god daughter? Didja not see what he just did?!" he couldn't help the furious tone that seeped into his words.
"Ask a blind woman to see?" she said, tone gentle. She paused and just looked towards his face, "I did not watch what they did to that poor girl."
"I had to." He said, tone flat and growing to a desperate growl, "'nd the fact it was the kid…it killed me. Gods, Maggie, how 'er they so fucked?" he searched her regal face for some clue, some answer, "What they've done to the people you love… ta you!" he glanced at the floor and shook his head, "I'm not a man who believes in the world being fair, but there's a line."
"That is what this world has become. Lives are a commodity. Bought. Sold. Signed away. Every single one of us played our role."
"Hafta admit, Maggie, parts of this play suck."
"No one sees the end of Hamlet alive." She gave him a sad little smile at the cry back to their relationship. Hamlet was the first play she'd brought him to see and they'd debated literature long into the night many times. "Graverobber…why do you bother?" He tried to ignore the shiver up his spine at those words,
"I don't know, I keep hopin' next time'll be better, that I won't fail." He smirked darkly, "Guess I don't get a chance ta make that mistake again, do I?"
"We only fail those who have faith in us. We only truly fail if we lose faith in them."
"How do you lose faith in the dead?"
"Asks the man talking to a dead woman?" Graverobber chuckled,
"I talk ta the dead a lot, this is onna the few times I've had them talk back."
"I believe I was the one who initiated this conversation…So really, the living are talking back to the dead." It was her own special way of ribbing him; her teasing manner evident.
"I always talk back to you, Maggie-bird." He countered.
"It's a fine line to walk. One foot in, the other foot out of the grave. Lonely." It was as if that one word broke a piece of the dam inside him. By just saying it, Graverobber felt the crushing loneliness. He reached his "good" hand up to brush his hand across her face, but he paused.
"Am I allowed to touch you? Or will ya leave me alone again if I do?" She gave him that somber little smile,
"I don't think there are any rules anymore, Graverobber." He chuckled a little,
"Dunno if I like that er not, I lose part of my charm when what 'm doin' isn't really illegal." He finished reaching up and brushed her curled bangs off her forehead, Mag closed her lids over empty sockets. As Graverobber's hand brushed across her cool skin the blood on her face disappeared like a stream of water flowed from his fingers. "'nd I half thought it'd go right through…" As his hand moved away, Mag opened her lids again, this time reveling her natural nearly white eyes, the only difference being that now they weren't useless. His face broke into a smile, once again opening his split lips, "You look better that way, Maggie-bird." Having her look at him with those eyes, her true eyes, again after so long caused him to plead. "I wanted ta take care of her, ya know?"
"You can still have your chance, you know?"
"No, I can't. She's…gone…"
"How long until they come for you?"
"Not sure. At most, two days; at least ten minutes. Why?"
"You aren't looking so good…" she paused and tried to wipe a little of the blood off his cheek, but all Graverobber felt was cool and Mag's fingers came away clean. "You may see her before they fetch for you, yet."
She's gonna come through too? Please, please let her not know what happened…let her know I tried…
Shut up yer whining for a second. You might want to find out what she means.
You would ask for a straight answer from the dead?
No, stupid, you would.
"Does she hate me, Maggie-bird, just tell me that much."
"Honestly?" Graverobber growled to himself at the thought of being lied to at a time like this, and said so,
"If ya would be so kind, I'd rather ya didn't lie ta me if 'm gonna find out first hand 'nyways." Graverobber couldn't stop the thick sarcasm that was spread over his words. Mag just gave him a calm, unruffled look that told him that she was getting angry.
"You will have to ask her yourself." Feeling like Mag had just twisted a knife deep into his gut, Graverobber growled; then jumped about a foot in the air when there was a hesitant little knock at the door. Unworried, Mag simply looked towards the sound, Graverobber barked the words
"Come in." acutely aware of what had transpired the last time this situation had played out. Instead of the Pavi, however, a rather short GENtern entered, looking just like any other GENtern prowling the hallways. Her head and eyes were down a little under the dark red visor and a mass of bright auburn hair was thrown up hastily in a messy half ponytail, not unlike his own hair style. She was the epitome of mindless blow-up doll drone until she stepped through the doorway and promptly nearly tripped over herself in her heels. She cursed a little as she recovered from hitting the floor with a hand on the doorframe.
"Gr-Graverobber?" she asked in a teary voice. Graverobber started to scowl at her, thinking she was here for the kid's body.
Damned if she thinks she's going to take it.
"Do I…KID?" it had taken a second for that voice to register in his grief and pain stricken brain. He watched in awe, struck silent for almost the first time in his life as she pulled the visor up, eyes wide, and put her finger against her lips.
"Will you shush! Are you trying to get us caught?" She finally looked him over without the bright red shield in front of her face and she gasped a little, her eyes filling with tears. "Oh my god, Graves…What did they do to you?" she whimpered and fell to her knees without thinking. He watched her bite her lip against the little scream that built behind her lips, but it seemed that the very worst of the withdrawals was on it's way out. Graverobber just stared at her, he'd just seen her killed! He'd watched Luigi…
That rat bastard! That wasn't the fucking kid at all! Just some surgery done-up GENtern!
How could I be so stupid?
In your defense, it's what they do for a living; and twisted as they are, you've got to give the devils their due.
But she's…
Alive. He didn't give her a chance to question him further, he reached out and crushed her to him, kissing her full and fiercely on the mouth; she gave a little squeak of surprise, but happily leaned into him. Blood covered her lips like a macabre lipstick when she finally pulled away. She looked a little cross eyed as she shook her head a little as if to clear cobwebs out and she rested her forehead on his and let out a little sigh.
"I…When you never came home I got worried and then I heard that they had you so I figured I had to get you out, since it was my fault you were in here in the first place…it was easy. I mean, GENterns come and go so fast it was cake getting in…" Her thoughts came tumbling out her mouth in a rush. Graverobber put two fingers over her lips to stop the stream of thought.
"Kid, yer fucking brilliant 'nd as soon as we're safe 'm gonna be so pissed that you snuck yer cute little ass in here when your sick just to save me." She tried to cover her blush by tugging at the hem of her short white uniform,
"Just wish being a secret agent came with less skimpy clothes…"
"I'm not complaining." She smiled shyly and ducked her head a little, her blush deepening,
"I couldn't leave you…I just…couldn't." she glanced worriedly over her shoulder, bit her lip again and sighed. "I have a way to get you outta here…but you need to not mind tight, dark places…"
"Kid, remember who yer talkin' to." He gave her his best smirk, "But we have a slight problem."
"What? I…what?"
"Onna my arms is nearly useless 'nd my leg's not in great shape." Shilo let a guilty look flood her features, was she thinking of her little "lesson"?
"You're not gonna be walking out of here…"
"No, kid, not walk." He glanced back at Mag who stood off to one side, looked torn between looking wistful that Graverobber now knew that Shilo was still alive and the nearly motherly pissed at Graverobber's little molestation of her. "I can try my damnedest though." He shifted so his good arm was against the bed and started wedging himself at least up to sit on the bed as Shilo looked down at her hands and gave them a guilty smile,
"See…I was thinking…they're looking for you, but if I can make you not you and make you dead then you can get out…" Graverobber froze and stared at her,
"Wait, what?" she looked up at him, "Kid, ya wanna run that by me again?" She stood shakily on the large, ridiculous heels and held her hands out to help him, worry stamped over her pixie-sized features.
"I…I figure if you're already dead they won't notice. And if you're not you dead…" She was having trouble forming her plan into words, that much was obvious, "Look, hold on a sec." She turned and scampered clumsily out of the door again, brushing right past Mag, without seeing her. Graverobber looked at Mag,
"I don't think she knows I'm supposed to be…" he drew his good hand across his neck, "publicly, does she?" Mag shook her head as Shilo came back, struggling under the weight of a rather large, lopsided bag.
"They keep a lot of people in rooms up here…and if I can make you like someone else…" she reached into the bag and pulled out a short blonde wig. "GENterns, in between being all gross with Pavi, lug some of the bodies downstairs. You get where I'm going yet?"
"I get it, kid, 'nd yer a genius, but we need to stop and talk this out quick. First and foremost I'm worried about yer health-" She looked up, nearly her whole damned arm inside the bag and blew a few strands of stray hair out of her face,
"No. No me. You always take care of me. It's time to take care of you, damnit." Graverobber couldn't keep the small smirkish grin off his face. He was just lucky he wasn't grinning like an idiot because of the deep relief he felt that she was not only safe but here with him.
"Come 'er, kid." She dropped the bag and walked over to him. She knelt much like Mag had, knees together and to the side, very lady-like; but the look on her face was completely defiant.
"Yes?" Graverobber cupped that defiant little face in his hands and kissed her firmly again,
"Can you drag me outta here?" he looked her right in the slightly star-struck eyes, "No bravado, no nothing, can you physically drag my ass outta here in that thing?" He felt her shiver a little under his hands as the withdrawals flared a little and she arched her back and her eyes rolled back, before she shook her head to clear it.
"Yeah. I can. I think. Might have to ditch the giant heels of death, but I can. If it means getting you home and safe I'll do anything…" she blushed deeply at her little confession.
"You know what'll happen if you trip, right? Er fall?" she ignored him for a second and started pulling slightly wrinkled clothes out of the bag,
"They were Dad's. Should kinda fit. You change while I go look for your stuff…" she started to leave before he could argue. She paused at the doorway and looked back at him, "And Graves?" she tossed him the clothes and wig, a mirror of his own smirk on her face, "I won't trip." He chuckled to himself as she disappeared through the door, then turned an unamused look at the expanse of ridiculous looking clothing in front of him. He shared a sarcastic look with Mag, who was characteristically silent through all this.
"I'd almost 've preferred the gods be damned Repo-coat…" he muttered as he pulled his tee-shirt he'd been left with off and pulled a hideous looking button up one on.