So, how will the conversation end?
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"I don't know how much you know about my childhood, but no one loved me. Then I grew up, and no one loved me. Then I died, and still no one had loved me. I was feared, hated, despised, obeyed, or even grudgingly respected, but never, ever loved. And then I came here, and there was you, and Knives. I couldn't comprehend what was going on, that there were people who actually liked me enough to want to be near me.
"Then there was the entire death and torture thing I went through, as well as the entire plant business. I needed time to sort things out in my head, and I needed to see if you all really loved me, or if I was just fooling myself. So I ran away, and I made it difficult to follow me because if you went through all that trouble, just for me, then maybe it would be real, and maybe you really would love me. It wasn't like I reasoned things through like that, but looking back now, that's basically what I was thinking.
"What you and Knives shared with me was too easy, and I couldn't trust it. I hadn't earned it, I didn't know why I received it, and there was just too much going on for me to try and sit and rationalize what was going on between us. So I ran, and I'm sorry. And I stayed away, and you never came after me, so I figured that maybe you hadn't really loved me after all. And while I hated the thought, it actually eased my mind a bit. I was no longer having to fear what I would do if it was a lie.
"Enough time had passed that I could pretend that not having you around me, near me, in my life at all, was fine. That there wasn't this huge, gaping, bleeding hole where half my life had been.
"I've been working very hard the past few years. Yes, because my help is needed. But also because if I worked hard enough, then I didn't have to think. Didn't have time to think. And then, when things slowed up a bit at work, I picked up time-consuming hobby. Again, so I wouldn't have to be reminded that my house was empty, that my home was far away and filled with people who didn't really want me after all." Anne's voice caught, but she forced herself to go on.
"I am so sorry that I left you behind. I should not have gone, and certainly not the way I did. I should have given you the chance to say goodbye, to argue me out of leaving, to have a say in what I did because it wasn't just my life, as I was thinking, but I hurt your lives too, and I'm sorry. I was afraid, in a way, that you would argue me out of leaving. That if I had to say goodbye to you in person, that then I couldn't do it, couldn't just run off in the face of your pain.
"And for the love of all that's holy, I shouldn't have let you, either of you, think that I was a genalt after I found out that I was a plant. That was a huge lie, and neither of you deserved it. I was in a snit after Ace got all the attention in the desert, and that no one seemed to worry that I had been shot. That was very immature of me, and I'm sorry. I was afraid that if you knew I was a plant, that you would use that as the main reason to like me, to love me, to want to keep me around. Not because of who I was, but because I had the right genes to belong to the club.
"Not that belonging to the club is in anyway bad. I love you guys, and I'm beginning to love Alex as well. But I would hate to be wanted for nothing that I could help, or change if I wanted to.
"Besides which, being a plant is not something I'm dealing well with. I'm not geared to think in terms of immortality, and nearly unlimited power. I'm just not able to comprehend such subjects as they pertain to me. But what weirds me out the most is the whole shape changing thing. I'm not used to my body being a mutable thing, shapeable at my will. I was very used to my old body, very comfortable in it. I should have been, considering that I had been forced to heal just about every part of it at one point or another. This one just doesn't have the same stability to it, the same feeling of permanence. I'm not sure if it's real, and if I just didn't notice it in my first months here, of if it's something psychosomatic. But whichever it is, I'm not entirely comfortable within my skin, with the knowledge that it isn't the skin I'm used to."
She paused a moment, then looked up from her hands and tried to meet Ace's eye. "I know I was wrong. I know I should not have left you, and certainly not the way I did. I'm not going to ask for your forgiveness, because if ever you do decide to forgive me it won't be because I want it, but because you do."
At the last, Ace met her eye. "I don't," she said coldly. She stared at Anne long enough to watch the words imprint themselves on a soul that had just laid itself bare, then walked to the door. She eyed a non-moving Knives, then asked sarcastically, "Am I a prisoner? Or just until the conversation is over?"
"It's over," said Anne softly at the same time Knives moved away from the door.
And Ace left.
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Oh. Well ain't that a bummer…