Blinded
Part Five
//I want to take a break before moving on.//
//Sure thing.//
They have wandered to the port, Schuldich all the time wondering if Crawford has planned to come here or if it is an unconscious move. About fifty meters away, there is a small gathering of people, a mixture of officials and desperate relatives of the victims of the air bombing, still hoping to at least find the bodies of their loved ones. Schuldich knows his body is gone, either in the morgue or already on its way to Berlin.
Crawford finds a flowerbed and sits on its concrete edge, just several feet away from the water. Schuldich decides to stand on the flowerbed, next to the American.
//It's windy.// Schuldich observes Crawford's hair being lifted and dropped, the collar of his coat flapping about. //Are you cold?//
The American eyes Schuldich once. "Not really."
//I can't remember what cold feels like. It's scary.// Schuldich is not even moving his lips to imitate real speech. //It should be cold. I should feel my hair being blown into my eyes and my mouth. I might even feel tiny drops of water on my face. The air should taste salty. But I can't even remember what "salty" is like.// He cannot even recall the pain of fire on his skin, the agony that he went through when his limbs were torn away at the moment of the blast.
What is going to happen, when he loses all memories of what it felt like to be alive? Will he forget who he is, too?
He laughs to himself. He should not be brooding over these things. He has always lived for the moment, and being dead should not change things. Brooding and angst just do not fit his image. //Then again, I can always find someone to tap into if I want to feel those things again. Is this what they call being possessed by a ghost, you think?//
Crawford glances at Schuldich again, an unbelieving expression on his face. Telepaths. Is it a trait in telepaths that they cannot stop reading minds even if they know it damages their own sanity? Over the years that they had worked together, Crawford had watched Schuldich drink up the minds of other people -- "minds taste like honey, Crawford" -- and at the same time struggling to keep his own identity alive. In SS, more than a handful of telepaths he knew had brought destruction upon themselves doing mind reading. They became confused about who they really are, and tried to put bits and pieces of other people's minds together to form who they thought they were. But pieces from different puzzles can never fit together. These telepaths all ended up taking their own lives.
It was a weakness that all telepaths try to hide, and Rosenkreuz tried to cover up. They invented all sorts of stablising drugs for the telepaths, but they refused to admit the problem in case it was used against them by their enemies. Schuldich hid it well. It took Crawford three years to notice the problem and adjust their team operations accordingly. Until today, Crawford still has problems seeing why it took him so long to notice. So far, the only explaination he came up with was that Schuldich was a good actor.
//Fine, be cool and ignore me.// The German jumps off the flowerbed and strolls towards the water.
"I'm thinking what to tell you next." Crawford finally confesses. "I can't see the consequences if I tell you all of it. I can't get a vision of it."
//Because I'm not "real"?// Schuldich turns on his heels and walks back to his companion. He did not even have problems telling how he destroyed his own family. What can it be that Crawford is hestitating about?
Thinking back, Schuldich has only seen Crawford being truly hestitant twice in all these years. This is the second time. The first time had been eight years ago. Schwarz did not exist then, it was just the two of them working together. He was twenty years-old, Crawford was twenty-five. They made a disastrous but efficient team - Schuldich could not even speak proper English then.
Schuldich snickers at the memory of communicating with Crawford using his broken English. Crawford had mastered German, but he forced the telepath to learn and use English all the time. German was forbidden, and telepathy was only allowed if it was necessary for a job. More than once Schuldich had got so frustrated he refused to speak at all.
He asks if the American can remember those times.
"You used to say 'fuck you, Krawford, I kan't do Englisch' at least once a day."
//Well at least I got the "fuck you" part right!// They laugh together, a pair of old friends sharing an old joke. Schuldich finally settles himself beside Crawford, on the edge of the flowerbed. //I know you didn't appreciate being called Krawford though.//
"You got it in a couple of months. I knew you would."
//Vision, huh?//
Crawford nods, his eyes staring off into the distance. "Saw it the day I picked you up in Hamburg."
//You relied on a vision of something that would happen in a couple of months' time? It was almost ten years ago and I'm sure your powers didn't reach that far.//
Almost ten years ago. Schuldich was in his cell for the ninth day for disobedience. At least it was not one of those metal coffins. He sat in a corner of the room, legs stretched out in front of him and his head rolled back, waiting for the American Neumann had talked about. He had waited for two years already. In his cell, during training, during blood tests, he waited for that man.
//Somebody's visiting, Schu.// The "inmate" in a cell nearest to the exit spoke to him.
//I heard the door.//
//He looks important. Who's he?//
Schuldich narrowed his eyes and tried to read the mind of the visitor. //Blocked. Worse than a lead shield, can't see a damn thing.//
//Che.//
Then the footsteps stopped, outside Schuldich's door. The shield of the visitor came down, the move obviously deliberate, in an attempt to gain Schuldich's trust. Two men began to speak.
"I can make use of him." //And I don't want him locked up.// It was the stranger. He spoke German, although it was clear that it was not his native tongue. His voice was so calm, so smooth, so... pure, like aged wine.
//Neumann told me already.// "How can you make sure he doesn't get away?" Schuldich's supervisor. He asked the routine questions, knowing that he had to hand Schuldich over in any case. //Take him. I don't care.//
"I can tell the future, sir." //Idiot.//
A shiver ran through Schuldich's thin body. The precognitive. It has to be that American. Excitment that resulted from two years' of anticipation paralysed him. He sat, unable to move, and listened to the rest of the conversation, if it could be called one.
"Oh, of course. Go ahead then, if he's more useful that way."
The special lock on his door that was too strong even for telekinetics to break was opened. The door swung open smoothly, without the sound of rusted hinges that Schuldich imagined, and light came flooding in. The American stood in the doorway, his back to the light. Schuldich narrowed his eyes instinctively, yet he still could not see anything. He had lived in darkness for too long, the light blinded him.
The American's long shadow stretched across the room and touched the German's face.
//My name's Brad Crawford. Come with me.//
"You're right, I couldn't see that far without the chance of being completely wrong." Crawford's reply brings Schuldich back to the present.
//So why didn't you wait for me to finish my training first?//
Crawford bites his lips, letting out a heavy breath that is almost like a sigh.
//... It's one of the things you don't want me to know. That's why you don't want to continue the story.//
"Yes. And no." Crawford wants to continue, but he normally does not take risks, and risks are when he cannot see the possible results of his actions. Right now, he cannot foresee anything.
But if he stops now, the whole point of telling the story is lost. What he really wants to tell is the part he is hesitant about.
Not too far away is the spot where Schuldich's body laid. He looks there, remembering the body that was burnt, with limbs missing.
He turns his gaze back at Schuldich, a decision made.
"I'll tell you the rest of it. All of it."
[to be continued]
Author's note: I forgot to mention something. Crawford here is around... 33, Schuldich about 28, so it's 6 years since the anime events. Crawford should look a little older here than he appeared in the manga and anime - but still too young for his age! Schu I guess looks the same. He looks like the type that never grows old. They've changed a bit since Schwarz, of course, because they no longer killed to live. Crawford is a "retired assassin", so to speak. I hope he sounds like one in this fic.