Dear Ace,
I don't really know how to say this. I'm sorry I wasn't here when you woke up. I know it sucks. I know you probably feel that I could have stayed around long enough for you to get out of the bulb. But I couldn't. I had to go quickly, or I would never be able to go at all.
You probably wonder why I had to go, anyway. I'm not sure I have what you might believe to be a good reason, but it's my reason all the same. Staying around you and Knives, I'm beginning to lose pieces of myself. Maybe that's a good thing, but it hurts. And I'm too much of a sissy to be able to stay here and stop being myself.
Ah, this is all coming out wrong. I just wanted to let you know how much you truly mean to me, and how much it hurts me that I'm not going to be here for you. Leaving you is one of the hardest decisions I have ever made in a life full of hard ones. I don't really want to, but I think, in the long run, that leaving now is best.
I hope to see you again before too long, but I've never been so good at seeing the future. I've come up with a couple ideas of how to spend my time while I'm away from you guys, and I think that they are decent plans, but I don't know how long it's going to take me to get things done. Hopefully not too long, but I don't see them being very quick, either.
I'm sorry. I think that's all I really want to say. I am so sorry that I'm leaving you. I realize that this isn't fair. I realize that it sucks. And I'm sorry.
Much love,
AnneMarie Salome Judith deBelville
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Kiley folded the piece of paper, placed it in an envelope, and sighed. That didn't go as well as she might have wished, and it was only a letter. Maybe it was best that she didn't get to say goodbye to Ace. She would certainly just make a hash of the whole situation. Just like she had done such a wonderful job on this letter.
She almost tossed it in the trash, but she didn't. She hadn't written it to be a picture of perfect epistle writing, but to give Ace something tangible, something of her to hold on to. It wasn't much, but it was the best that she could do for her.
She ran her fingers through her hair. She had finally acquired a brush, which helped matters immensely, but the damn stuff kept falling into her face and tickling her nose. She pushed it back, tucking it behind her ears and trying to hook it behind her shoulders, but it fell forward anyway.
Giving up, she leaned back and let her head droop backwards as she stared at the ceiling. It was very blank up there, she decided after a few minutes, then got up, dropped the envelope on top of the dresser, and grabbed another piece of paper.
She tapped the end of her pencil against the table, thinking hard. It was almost a relief when Knives knocked. Almost.
She set the pencil down and went to the door.
"Are you ok?" he asked. She looked at him quizzically, and he continued. "It's well past lunchtime and you hadn't arrived yet. I was beginning to wonder what was keeping you."
"Nothing important," she lied easily. "I just got distracted."
"With your stomach? That's hard to believe."
"Yet true," she said jokingly. "Believe it or not, I am more than a stomach with legs."
He put the back of his hand over his heart. "Say it isn't true!" he joked.
"But it is!" she protested. "There are other parts to me, too!"
His eyes traveled over her body. "And such nice parts they are." She ignored him, so he pinched her bottom.
"Hey," she said, laughing as she swatted his hand away. "That hurts."
He danced away a step or two, just out of easy swatting range. "I thought you had a high tolerance for pain."
"Pain, yes; idiots, no."
He stopped, mock hurt. She kept walking. He trotted a few steps and caught up with her as she entered the kitchen.
"You are so cruel," he moaned.
"I've been called that before," she allowed, grabbing a plate and picking through the spread.
"Evil, mean, heartless, cold, unfeeling."
She nodded absently. He continued his litany, and she tuned him out, applying herself diligently to the process of eating.
His tone changed, and she started listening again.
"You stopped hearing me, didn't you?"
She shrugged, mouth full. She swallowed and nodded. "You weren't saying anything I haven't heard before. Although people generally said it with a bit more heat."
"I was just teasing," he said, looking slightly hurt. His blue eyes looked so sad, his shoulders slumped so precisely that she knew he was trying to put one over on her. So she laughed.
"I know you were. But just because you were teasing doesn't mean I had to pay attention. You never know; I might have been so hurt by those words I didn't hear that I would cry myself to sleep, heart broken into little tiny pieces."
"Tears are for sissies," he teased again.
She stuck her tongue out at him and he grinned. "I am a sister, you know. Well," she frowned a bit, "I was. Do I get to claim family from another dimension or not? I mean, it's not like she was ever here."
"Family is family. You don't get to not claim them."
She smiled slightly as she looked up at him. "No disowning the black sheep?"
"No. Not allowed."
"So which one of you is the black sheep? You or Vash?"
He gave her a condescending look. "Vash, of course. The poor deluded fool." He shook his head sadly as he said it.
She half-grinned. "Oh. Of course."
