CHOICES
Disclaimer: See chapter 1, I'm too lazy to come up with another...
ANSWERS TO REVIEWERS
Taliara: You were my first ever reviewer, on my chatfic that got taken down. I will love you forever for that. Hehe I'm glad you like the look of my stuff... Hope I don't disappoint ya.
Blank Ned: Glad you like my little rhyming disclaimer. Just for you I wrote another little rhyme that's even lamer... Never fear, all will become clear. I know, I know, I have problems.
Dusty: You should copyright the word Angstgua. It's perfect.
Watchman: They're my favourites too, which is why I wrote this. I'm not going to tell you if he dies or not because it would give the whole thing away, and we can't have that now can we? All will be revealed with time.
Frosteh loves you all.
CHAPTER TWO: THE DECISION
She could only stare at him. A muted buzzing sound seemed to fill her ears and the edges of her vision went dark. At some level she was vaguely aware of voices, a hum somewhere far off, unimportant; she couldn't have identified words or tones had her life depended on it.
Somehow she made it outside and sank down to sit numbly on the stone steps outside the Yard, ignoring the rain pouring down her face as she leaned against the wall, starting to shake as it slowly sank in. Finally she felt herself start to Change, an automatic reaction to any strong and powerful emotion such as hurt, anger or fear, and stopped it. She couldn't afford that now. She had to think.
When she had regained a shaky control over her morphogenic field, she sat up and leaned back against the wet bricks, not even noticing the tears running down her cheeks with the rain, thinking. There was one chance, if she was willing to take it. It might not work, and even if it did it would mean breaking a promise she had made to herself years ago. She had sworn never to do this. But now... Did she have a choice?
She knew she couldn't just stand by and watch him die if there was any hope at all of saving him. But this... Shaking her head slowly, she bit her lip. It would mean going against everything she had vowed when she had left Uberwald, left it all behind her. But if it meant saving him... It was worth it. Hoping this was the right thing to do, hoping it would work, she stood up slowly and swiped at her eyes, wishing that werewolves had someone to pray to or that she had more time to think. There was no choice.
(Switching to Vimesey's POV for this bit to make it more dramatic. Hehe)
Vimes sat silently in one of the sickrooms set aside below the cells, his eyes fixed on the figure on the bed. Igor had given up, even if he hadn't said as much; he had gone to busy himself elsewhere now, ostensibly looking up alternative remedies, but if an Igor didn't know a cure then there wasn't one. Vimes didn't want to think what this was going to do to the Watch. Carrot was the one who'd held it together all these years, and in a very real way it was thanks to him that it had been built up from the gutter trash to a functioning official body once more.
This morbid musing was interrupted when the door opened and Angua walked in slowly, almost hesitantly, which was definitely unlike her. He looked at her carefully and saw she'd been crying; unsurprising, really, given the circumstances, but it was still a shock. Angua didn't cry. She occasionally made other people cry, but she herself never wept. She didn't even look at him, which was also no big surprise; he doubted she even saw him. Instead she crossed to the bed and stood there silently for a long time, looking down at the unconscious man.
He watched her warily, unsure of what even a werewolf with her self-control would do in these circumstances, and after some time he saw her close her eyes and whisper something to herself he couldn't make out before taking a deep breath. Crouching by the bed, she reached for Carrot's hand, the muscles in her face beginning to writhe peculiarly.
Now that was a surprise. She normally never changed in front of other people; obviously she wasn't thinking about that now, though, but he wasn't sure why she was changing at all unless it was a wolf thing he didn't know about. It only took him a few seconds to see that it was just her face that was changing, though, and that really was strange. He supposed that theoretically a werewolf could alter just one part of their body but he didn't see the point...
...Unless she needed to do something specific and didn't want to waste time changing entirely. But what?
He watched her hesitate and murmur something softly; her voice was badly distorted but he could just make out the words, "I'm sorry." What...? Then the muscles in her face began to really contort, features warping until he had to screw his eyes out of focus. He wasn't going to take his eyes off her until he'd worked out what was going on, but he couldn't watch that directly without feeling ill. This may have explained why it took him a few minutes to understand what happened next.
Angua's head lashed forward. Only for a second, she was hunched over Carrot's outstretched arm, and then it was done and she stood up, face normal now, backing away a pace and looking down at him with an unreadable expression. There was blood on her face.
An awful suspicion grew in Vimes' mind, and he glanced down at Carrot, who looked the same as he had before she came in... Except for the blood on his arm, a ring of crimson that was bleeding as he watched. He looked back and forth between the two, and it clicked. She'd bitten him. He finally found his voice.
"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST DO?"
END OF CHAPTER TWO
Taa-daah! That was The Choice, as it were. In the following chapters we see if it did indeed work as she hoped, and whether it does or not you can expect lots of angst as they all try to deal with the consequences. Hope you liked it, R&R and let me know!
Frosteh