CHAPTER 14

Immediately after they pulled in Wolf, not even waiting for the canopy of his cockpit to open fully leapt out and made a dash for Billie. Her cockpit would not open from the outside without her signal however…

"Damnit all to hell!" He hissed in a blazing rage.

Not wasting any time he ripped out his gun and with all of his strength; bashed the bayonet on the end into the glass. One… two… three, it cracked he sucked in air still tired from the last few chaotic hours.

'Please.' He willed it to shatter.

And it did shatter with the final forceful bash his muscular arms laid into it. Leon and Panther climbed up to help, they cleared away the jagged edges of the glass in its metal frame with their gloved hands. Wolf reached in and pulled her up from under her arms but her hands wouldn't budge; they were gripping the steering wheel. He set her back down and tried to pry her hands away, the black stripes that had once covered them had now vanished quite entirely.

When he finally pried her clutched fingers off, he saw blood, dry blood in her palms that had been caked to the wheel in the shape of the stripes that had once run along the very same space. With the aid of his teammates he carefully pulled her limp body out of the compartment, and into his arms. Upon looking into her face; calm and still like a statue he saw a thick trail of dry blood running from her nose, down her chin to her neck… she looked very still. Was she breathing?

No one could say anything… they were all still in shock that they had even lived at all, after staring down in worry for a moment Panther helped with her legs. Leon looked over his shoulder at the rush of people around the flight deck; one person here had to have medical training. Wolf swore under his breath and then made an awkward leap to the flight deck, Billie in hand. Toting her cold body tightly in his arms he frantically ran through his base.

"Medic!" Wolf called repeatedly through the crowd of criminal underlings.

"Someone get me a damn doctor!" He shouted to Leon and Panther as they followed him onto the lift.

And finally upon reaching an upstairs platform; an ape white with either age or simply his natural color came jogging up. Wolf recognized him from his medical work in the venom army, he asked him to lay her down on a flat surface. Wolf carried her into his own quarters and laid her across the bed, then the experienced doctor shooed him and his teammates out of the room, so he could work in the quiet.

The three Star Wolf members waited in the hallway for a brutally agonizing ten minutes; Leon had propped his back against the wall with his arms crossed and the chameleon was a strange dark green, as opposed to his usual jade color. Panther was standing in the middle observing his teammates behavior. And Wolf was wildly switching between pacing back and forth and stopping to lean on the wall and twiddle his large clawed thumbs.

'But we can still get hurt and die…' those words rung in his head like hells bells now.

It was her own life force she was using? Could overuse kill her? This was all just making him more frantic. Panther wanted to say something to calm him down; but he felt that perhaps his silent company would mean more than some empty words he could toss out there poetically for them to hear. And at last, the medic arose from the room.

"Well?" Wolf hastily shot at him.

"Your comrade is okay. She has entered a state of extreme exhaustion like I have never seen before." He said in a rough voice.

"The bleeding I'm sure you saw was the result of this; it's quite literally as if something was aggressively sucked out through her skin." He paused for a moment, knowing that this was not the type of business you asked questions about.

"Ahem, anyways this process damaged muscle and skin tissue, which accounts for the bleeding itself. However her body's natural responses should heal it up like they would a bruise or cut while she sleeps."

"So she's going to be okay then?" Panther questioned already knowing the answer.

He thought Wolf could stand to hear it again from the look on his face.

"Yes, don't get me wrong, she will be asleep for quite a while; her body has entered some form of rapid sleep like a comma... but also not a comma: it is hard to explain. It's really quite extraordinary; as if her body was designed to react this way. But yes she will be fine."

Wolf's knees got a little wobbly with relief… You could knock him over with a feather at the moment.

"But do try to keep it down when she wakes up, I wager she will have one spectacular headache." And with that the good doctor walked down the hallway and out of their line of sight.

Wolf not wasting an iota of time rushed into the room. Leon tried to follow but Panther placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"Just give them some time alone." He assured his teammate.

In the dimed light of his room, he could make out the soft glow on her face. It appeared that the doctor had cleaned up the blood and bandaged her hands up. She looked so peaceful in her cold sleep; not like Billie at all. Wolf had seen her sleep; she was loud and breathed through her mouth, drooled everywhere. He didn't like this, it wasn't her; it was like some lifeless shell. In the past he had found the sound of her obnoxious breathing relaxing; but this, this silence was awful.

He paced the foot of the bed slowly, just to hear his footsteps on the metal. There had to be some sound in this room it was too damn quiet… but then finally noticing how exhausted he was from everything that had occurred today he just sat down on the foot of the bed. Not wanting to think about how cold she was, like death was on her; he looked down at the floor.

"Damn Billie…" he said knowing full well his words fell on deaf ears.

"it takes a lot to scare me, but damn."

He reached up and felt the throbbing bruise where Taylor's guard had knocked him across the head. Had all of this really happened in the course of one day? They saved the whole damn universe and it already felt like eons ago now…

"I need a cigarette." He mumbled, but didn't move.

Wolf didn't want to leave yet, not until she woke. He didn't want the person who just saved his life to wake up from it alone. Sitting up, his body began to hunch over slightly… with his forearms resting on his thighs he tried to keep his head up, but to no avail. His head hung down and he fell asleep sitting up.

Little did Wolf know Billie was caught in one of her dreams: Billie was caught in one of her nightmares. Once again just a small child, with big brown eyes she was surrounded by her purple leaved lovelies. Strange birds with big eyes and four wings fluttered through the air, not that they were strange where she was from. But soon they all flew away in a panicked way it was then that she saw the shadow lace split the sky above her darkening everything; instantly she made a run for it. The shadow lace did persist, or at least the one controlling it did; the blackness forged into massive clawed hands behind her. She could not outrun them forever, the voice of the wretched woman in her head made that abundantly clear.

"What you have concealed, you shall become!"

Billie screamed with the high pitched voice of a child through her gasps for air. She continued to run through the darkness, sucking in air as she sobbed in terror. Then her body smacked against something, she fell backwards and looked up. A very tall man stood in front of her; she could not see his face, he kept his back to her. But the large silhouette spoke:

"What are you doing?" He said.

"What?" she said still sobbing uncontrollably.

"What are you doing? Why do you still linger here? There is work to be done."

"Wh- who are you?" she said getting to her knees.

"Pick yourself up Billie! This is pathetic!" the silhouette turned around revealing only the blue glow of a left eye that pierced the darkness.

"Wolf?" she stood up speaking in the clear voice of an adult.

Then his glow faded and she got sucked through the dark ground under her like quicksand.

"Wha?!" Billie shot up in a cold sweat.

"What the hell?" she gasped looking down at her shaking bandaged hands.

She sucked in air, letting it sink in that had just been a bad dream. Putting her square palms up to her forehead she tried to slow her breathing. Her body was still shaking from the nightmare.

"Ugh, why does my head hurt?"

The last thing Billie remembered was being caught in the crust of that Aparoid planet with no foreseeable way out; she vaguely remembered someone exchanging last words. But everything after that was just a dense blur of physical pain and little visions of the shadow lace fingering its soft coils around her. Then she finally calmed down enough to hear the deep breathing in the dark with her. She turned the dim line bulb that was over the bed up a notch; the room filled with light and on the foot of a bed that she clearly knew was not her own, was her boss hunched over and he sounded like he was half snoring.

With her weak trembling muscles, she slowly inched to the side of the bed. And although her hands felt weak, and her head still felt fuzzy; her legs felt perfectly fine. This did not surprise her, as the shadow lace arose from the hands of a Shadow Legion, and was visible through the optic area. She grabbed the sheet that had been covering her and draped it over Wolf's shoulders; however this only succeeded in waking him up. He blinked himself awake groggily and turned his head to see a frizzy haired Billie gazing at him through a confused face.

"Billie." he said through the deep rings under his eyes.

"What happened? Did the Aparoid planet get destroyed?" she asked trying to fill the blanks.

"You don't remember?"

Billie just shook her head.

"Well, that was some display of power out there. You saved all of our lives." Wolf said in a soft tone of relief.

"Yeah… wait, my baby! Is my ship okay?! We took a lot of fire!" She gasped.

Wolf just smirked glad to see she was still the Billie he had set out with.

"Yeah, you laugh it up… But in almost 70 years that ship has been my only constant companion." She said getting up to go look at the damage.

Wolf stood up and grabbed her shoulders with his large hands, holding her still.

"Billie, you nearly killed yourself out there, you aren't goin' anywhere until yah rebuild the energy you used up out there." He said with a stern gaze.

"Oh please," she spat holding up her bandaged hands.

"This is nothing. I have had way worse."

Then she tried to walk away ending the conversation. But Wolf's large fingers did not budge. Once again her words rang in his head, like a horrid mission bell; 'But we can still get hurt and die.'

"Let go." She said slowly.

"Billie, you were cold, bloody and limp like a corpse. I thought you were dead." He said it slowly, like every word was difficult to say.

"Yeah, and now I need some headache pills what's your point?" she said sarcastically.

However Wolf was in no mood; which he made clear with the narrowing of his violet eye. She couldn't read the reaction at all, he didn't look mad or worried really, this was something else. But what she did notice was how tight his grip was becoming; like he was trying to clench his fists.

"Wolf you're being ridiculous…"

"Billie…" he said trailing off.

"You don't have to say it." She said putting her hands down in defeat.

Wolf didn't want to fall in love; it was like some sick cruel joke. You walk around tough as nails, sometimes people around you die, didn't mean you had to bat an eye. That was the business he was in. But this person could not die: not on his watch, not while he could still help it. Never having felt this way before he had no idea how to act, how to make it known; not that it mattered she was already aware. So all he managed to do in the next moment was pull her into himself, draping her small frame with his large arms. She made a small squeaky noise in surprise, and then she felt his hand on the back of her head: and for once just decided to shut up and return the hug.

"Fine." She said muffled by his chest.

"But I'm only staying in here until my temperature comes back up."

"Deal." He said and backed himself back to his bed.

He sat down on the side with her legs draped over his lap. They just sat there in the comfortable silence; her shaking body drank in his body's heat, and she let herself recover from the ordeal of what was now yesterday. Wolf still not so great with expressing anything besides anger just held her up with his arms and let the top of his muzzle rest on the side of her face. It was a fantastic sensation; with no words they stayed this way for a long time, how long? Neither felt like they needed to keep track.

However much time later, they emerged from Wolf's room and Billie went to clean herself up. Wolf finally found an e-cig and leaned back in the seat of the Red Fang counting the money that was under it, letting the glowing e-cig hang from his lips.

In the bathroom, Billie looked at herself in the mirror. It was very early in the morning and she had the place to herself; she slowly replaced her braid and looked at it. She knew she had to tell Wolf what she was now, and where she came from; the whole truth. She had to tell all of her teammates, she needed them to understand; especially Wolf.

Billie tossed her braid back into its place along her neck and then looked down at her hands. Using her black claws she tore the bandages away, revealing her clean white hands. She wished she could remember exactly what she had done back on the Aparoid home world; but it was still just a blur. Letting out a long sigh she thought back on her dream, it was definitely Wolf; Wolf who had told her to stand, to get back to her feet and fight. He had become an embodiment of her strength even though she still knew so little of him.

However in the past, she had been dealt many a great kindness from people she knew very little about. Now ready to leave she picked up her antique bone comb, letting her fingers run across where the missing prong once was.

"Devin…" she whispered lost in nostalgia.

Then as she thought of Wolf, the realization finally came into her head. She knew even if James had lived, and even if Wolf lived on for a long time she would be bound by her blood: the blood of a Shadow Legion, to linger on and watch the slow decay of time take them away from her. She held the comb close to her heart and with the dream of Wolf still fresh in her mind; a single tear streaked down her face leaving a trail in her snow white fur. She fell down to her knees, and wept in the silence.