Epilog
Gabriel sat in the shower with his eyes closed and his mouth open. The water was hot, as hot as he could get it, but still deep down, in the marrow of his bones, he was cold. His two day stay in the hospital had done many things to help him recover from the trauma, he was re-hydrated and properly nourished, the bones in his feet were set, he was taught how to walk with a cast, he was counseled on how to deal with the emotional stress of victimization, and given painkillers that made everything feel just fine, but through it all, he was never really warm. The chill of that warehouse stayed with him.
And so when he got out of the bathroom he dressed himself in the warmest sweatsuit he had, pulled on the warmest fuzziest socks and shuffled around with an old burcenstoc on his left foot so those socks would be insulated from his apartment's cold wood floors. He also planned to wrap a wool blanket around his shoulders like a shawl as soon as he reached the couch, where he intended to zone out watching reruns of Babylon 5 and The Original Star Trek on the Sci-Fi channel.
He was half way to that zoned-out state, yawning as he limped into the main room of his apartment, when he saw something that shocked him into instant alertness.
"Hi Gabriel," Sara said, holding up a twelve pack of MGD in one hand and a pizza cutter in the other. On the table there was a box from the neighborhood pizza parlor that smelled strongly of pepperoni. "Welcome home."
"What is this?" Gabriel asked, his voice was guarded and sharp with suspicion.
"About 10 percent welcome home party and 90 percent apology."
"Apology?"
"I tried to rescue you, Gabriel," Sara's voice was stretched and mournful. She set down the beer and took a step toward him, he took a step back. Sara stopped, looked at him for a moment then looked down at the pizza cutter in her hand. "I'm sorry, I tried."
"Yeah, well, you know what Yoda said . . ."
Sara nodded, licked her lips and took a deep breath. It seemed fairly obvious that she was trying to fight back tears, "In that case, maybe I'll just leave . . ."
Gabriel sighed, all the cold hard anger he had in his heart melted away. "Stay," he said, forcing the word out. Sara looked up at him, her eyes were filled with an eager hope, Gabriel couldn't stand it, he glanced away. "It's late, the shelters are closed, where else you gonna go?"
"I don't want to be an imposition."
"Sara," Gabriel said, his eyes were scanning the floor, he didn't want her there, but he wanted her alone and unprotected out in the cold even less. "Just don't . . ." he started, but he didn't know how to end.
"Gabriel," Sara said "I failed you. You, of all the people in the world, I should protect and I couldn't." Her voice cracked, which pulled his eyes away from the floor to Sara's face. It struck Gabriel that Sara had suffered almost as much as he had: her apology must have been the most sincere apology that he had ever received.
"Through it all I wasn't afraid," Gabriel said. "Guns, fire, fists, it didn't matter: you were gonna save me."
"I tried Gabriel," Sara whispered.
"You didn't come," he said, looking away from her, to a corner in the ceiling where a cobweb was starting to form. "And I'm just gonna have to realize that you're not perfect Sara, you can't do everything."
Sara didn't know quite what to say, she stayed quiet.
He took a deep breath, and wiped his eyes, even though the tears hadn't yet escaped from them. "I'm furious at you, but it's not your fault. So, just . . . stay, please."
Sara actually was crying, she didn't try to hide her tears or wipe them away. "Oh, Gabriel."
Gabe suddenly felt horrible. He didn't want her to cry, he didn't want her to feel guilty, he knew she had tried, he knew she would gladly kill, and more than likely die, to protect him. "It's ok, Chief," Gabriel said, stepping forward. "I'm fine, you're fine, you know, whatever else," he shook his head casually, "It's not really important."
"Oh, Gabriel," Sara said again, and reached out to envelop him in a truly warm hug.
When they pulled away Gabriel was almost laughing.
"What?" Sara asked, she started to giggle with him.
"I missed you," Gabriel said.
Sara's smile slipped a little. "You missed me."
"For the past like, month, you haven't been there. And I get why, and I don't . . . I mean I'm not angry. I just miss you."
"Well I'm here," Sara said, "And I have beer, so I guess we should start making up for lost time."
"Ah," Gabriel said, looking down at the six-pack. "They put me on some pretty heavy duty pain killers."
"Are you afraid of pink elephants?"
"Man, Dumbo always scared the hell out of me."
"How about pizza?"
"Pizza I think I could do."
The End
Authors Note:
With apologies to everyone who really liked this story; I'm sick of it, so I'm not going to try to force in the part where the story Gabriel read at the beginning links into the end, and I'm not going to explain how the opposites that govern the Witchblade are not good and evil, but rather Choice and Destiny, and I'm not going to add this little gem of Dialogue: Sara- Gabriel are you alright?, Gabriel - Fine, I've just been starved and beaten . . . are you alright (after he sees she started crying), Sara - No, my best friend's been starved and beaten. All that stuff was good, but it just didn't work it's way in, and I'm too tired to try and stuff it in, so . . . sorry.
