CHAPTER TWELVE: Can A Phoenix Have Scars?

PART ONE…Ashes to Ashes …

After passing a long line of men carrying large, square paper cases, Salem switched from hugging the wall to sauntering down the center of the hall. His gaze was on the regular slats of the flooring.

Salem stopped the moment he recognized her. It wasn't her face he knew so much as her feet – she was the only person barefoot on these ships.

"Hey, what's new?" he asked casually.

Vanessa gripped the front straps of her bag and looked up to him through her new lenses. "Salem." Without hesitation, she sidestepped out of the way of another two men, these carrying stacks of smaller boxes.

Head cocked back to watch the men trample down the hall behind him, Salem nodded. "How's Vash doing?"

"Better than ever. But you need to go back now – it's not about you, and there's nothing you can do about it, except to accept their decision gracefully. Meryl's heart just wasn't with you," Vanessa explained softly.

Eyebrow up, Salem slumped against the wall. "Right. Well. Um."

Pushing her rectangular, narrow glasses up her nose, Vanessa continued. "They have a history. Fate wasn't with them on Gunsmoke, but now they've realized it. He's right for her, and vice versa. So, for us, it's over."

"Jesus Christ. She's been cheating on me," Salem grunted, head in his hands. His teeth ground together loudly. "With who?"

"They probably haven't acted on it yet. She's with the man she worships, the one that worships her - the most suffering, gentle man who ever lived. You asked me how he's doing…Now, I think, he's just perfectly fine."

He didn't turn to watch her shuffle down the hall behind him, his shock blinding his thought.

"Go back home," she called behind her.

Approximately 4 hours and 8 minutes later, Salem realized that while he had spoken with Vanessa, her ears were showing, and they were really long and pointy…Remarkably so.

OXO

Vash and Meryl sat, softly speaking, exchanging kisses here and there. Though they were close together on the sofa, it was still quite innocent, only their fingertips exploring the fingertips of the other. They would sit like this, reminiscing and storytelling for hours until Vash felt the need to sleep for classes tomorrow. Once the door shuttered between them they began to wonder how to deal with their current significant others.

Meryl sighed and slid by her back down the door shutter. Once on the floor, her hand slid upon a page. The letter was brief and hasty, since Salem's sloppy writing only worsened with stress. However, it was far more bittersweet than bitter, and Meryl smiled softly as a tear dropped from her chin and onto the paper.

The letter Vash found, however, was left as impersonally as the clean, empty spaces where she used to keep her canvases and supplies. The note was projected onto the wall in the darkened apartment. Stiff text explained that she had erased her current tracking data and moved in with a distant lover. The final line read, "If you try to find me, I will know, and I will consider it a contemptible and unforgivable insult to my resolve and intelligence." In lieu of a true ending, following the text was a deposit record, indicating that a hefty sum of credits had been put aside for a Ms. Tessla Saverem, with a Mr. Vash Saverem, single widower, as exclusive guardian; Ms. Tessla's biological mother, Mrs. Penance Mariposa-Saverem, having died in childbirth back on Gunsmoke.

Strangely, Vash didn't cry.

OXO

There are times when one may think that, at such an ungodly hour of the night, a man will leave his bed for nothing. But it had been easy to gather this group of men to move her things, once a large sum of credits was introduced. The men smiled with tired eyes as they accepted the funds and walked out. A few men were kindly – that, or they assumed more credits could be earned – and they stayed behind to offer more assistance.

"No thank you, I won't be unpacking," she replied, her eyes far more tired than their own. "In fact, I may not end up living here at all."

On the way back home, the men whispered excitedly about her appearance and behavior and ears and scars. They also couldn't come to an agreement on what kind of bribe she must've used to an official in order to get herself an empty apartment, especially in such short notice.

"Bitch is crazy. Looks like one of those cybernetic-enhanced assassin types we used to see back home. Got rich off killing, and now she's got no place in life. Probably insane now, and if she got the place like I say, a whore, too."

His companion shook his head and chuckled. "Can't disagree completely. But when I'm drinking some of this money away, I'll cheer her as a goddess 'till the booze leaves me."

Their stifled laughter faded down the hallway, filling those freakishly long ears.

Vanessa's face was blank as she stood, arms folded behind her back. She opened her eyes and leaned off of the wall to begin to walk soundless away from the apartment she'd filled with her belongings. Along the way, she pulled the thread stitching from the shoulders of her dress, and tossed the sleeves into a trash chute. The ship's cold, artificially circulated air hit the bare skin of her arms for the first time.

A security guard licked his finger and turned the page of this dusty, old girly mag a Gunsmoke immigrant had slipped him the other day, in exchange for not writing the guy up for a small possession charge. It was primitive, but somehow quite enjoyable, to see such images on paper.

When she cleared her throat impatiently, he uncrossed his legs, dropped the magazine, and sat up straight in a flurry of embarrassment.

"I need to talk to your superior. Or his superior…Or whoever's the highest up, that's awake. Actually, wake whomever up. Please hurry."

He was slow to react, since he was too busy scanning this odd woman. Ears, face scars, arm scars, shoulder and neck scars…But nevertheless alluring.

"Are you listening?"

Lieutenant Stevens rushed to keep up with Colonel Turlington. The Colonel was still fastening his uniform jacket, and unkempt bed hair peeked from the sides of his cap. "Sir, should the men be informed, or will we write this off as insanity? After all, this could spark riots, if it's true." Stevens wiped the sweat from his brow. "Even our scientists have never seen one in the flesh before. The implications-"

"Shut up, Lieutenant," the Colonel snapped angrily. "Probably a lie, a wives' tale the bitch's drawing on for attention. Sputtering like that, man, you should be ashamed of yourself. If she's causing a scene, she ought to have been taken to a secure location immediately, considering. I'll handle it from here."

As they neared the 18th sector's security desk, the men could hear the prattle and discern the words. "…core against what's left of mine I can form a weapon, to destroy targets from miles away. The dissection took most of the material I needed. See the scars? Call up a physician – clearly, most of these are over 50 years old. I'm at least a hundred. I stopped aging nearly a century ago. I was born in a-"

"Come with me, miss, we'll get you to your family soon," the Colonel interrupted, taking her by the arm and leading her into a nearby interrogation room.

"No," she demanded, punctuated by the sound of the heavy door slamming sideways, a shutter design sideways from the residential doors. "I have no family, and I don't want my acquaintances contacted or questioned in any way; they have nothing to do with this. I'm a plant, I'm not human, I'm a weapon and a freak. I've been de-clawed more or less, so I'm useless really, and I'm sure on Earth you people studied us enough that my physiology and usefulness is old hat. So do with me what you please. I'm through hiding," she ended, laying her hands calmly on the table with a gentle smile.