CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Transfer

PART THREE…What a Pity …

Vash drew his mouth into a tight line as Rita led him through hallways. Those five minutes of thought turned into an hour, and he still wasn't really ready to see her. Waiting any longer wouldn't have helped much, and Tessla was waiting, so he submitted to visit Vanessa, finally.

The fact that she'd had him flown in without asking bothered him. So did the fact that she hadn't told him anything until just then. Sure, he didn't really want to know, but still…why didn't she drop a line? He'd worried she was dead or worse, living a life reminiscent of Gunsmoke – afraid, battered, and paranoid. This was an entirely different reality. Here, it seemed she was a collaborator to perhaps the most concentrated and complete global policing agency in the history of Earth. Try as he might to ignore the issue of Agent Peace, it had always disgusted and enthralled him. This person killed so many, but only on those few occasions – a hundred or thousand times more lives had been saved by those acts. Agent Peace was doing what he only dreamed of doing – creating widespread peace – and nevertheless accomplishing it with means that Vash found horrific. Using threats of violence to curb violence? How barbaric! And yet, how effective!

Vash's nauseating mix of jealousy and anger was bubbling to the surface, for the first time. He felt himself becoming angry – very angry – and he was allowing it to happen. How could she!? His face tingled, his head pounded, and he shoved his free hand into his pocket.

So what did she want from him, now? What, after all these years, was she finally going to say, to do? She was injured, he guessed, so did that mean she wanted his help? Surely these people she surrounded herself with would help her better than he could. Did she want out of this Agency? Was she going to ask him to help her out?

Yes, that had to be it. She needed his help. Vanessa didn't want to kill people anymore.

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Vash's posture loosened as he faced the door labeled 'Patient 0012.' He was planning an escape in his mind, to get Vanessa, Tessla, and himself out of this place as safely as possible.

Rita stepped aside. "There are no cameras or sensors in there. You'll be alone. Just come outside the room when you're done, and I'll be here to escort you. Good luck."

Watching her walk away, he thought her offer of 'good luck' seemed odd. Taking a few deep breaths, he paused, and opened her door.

The room was without windows, solid white and empty, save for a soft chair next to a large, comfortable-looking bed.

"Vash," she acknowledged, with neither warmth nor bitterness.

He slowly sauntered to her bedside and saw her whitened eye and a lot of bandages. Little spots of bandages dotted her face, shoulders, and arms, which was all he could see. She was tucked into this bed with fluffy sheets, wearing a white tank top, hair in two long braids. There were black strands entwined in them.

"Are they keeping you against your will?" he asked quickly.

She laughed softly for a moment. "No."

His face began to tingle again. The anger rose and he found himself standing there, hand balled into a fist at his side, yelling at her. "What's the matter with you!? You killed hundreds of people! You abandoned me and Tessla, without telling us anything, and you went off to kill people and scare the hell out of everyone else!? And now you send your freaking buddies to get us, interrupt our happy lives, and bring me in here – for what!? You wanna chat? Do you want to gloat about the evils you've done? Do you want to talk about the old times, reminisce? Do you want to come into my life now, now that you've got a new boo-boo to kiss, now that I'm single? The nerve-"

"I abandoned you because you wanted me to, and so did Tessla!" she interrupted, speaking softly from weakness. She looked mad. "I didn't want to kill anyone, I wanted to prevent wars, and that's what I've done! And I don't want to make chit-chat! I'm sorry about Meryl, she-"

"Don't you, 'I'm sorry,' me! She was everything to me, she still is, and you don't know anything about her, so shut your mouth!" He stopped to breathe. Fighting back tears, he tried to stay focused. "You saved everyone from Knives, now you're saving everyone from yourself, and when you fail they die! This game you're playing with them has got to stop!"

"Vash, this is your dream, to-"

"This is NOT my dream, this is some bastardization of my dream where people only play nice because they don't want to get slaughtered! And when you take a day off work, like today, everything goes to shit because this isn't really morality! This is peace through fear! You failed, and people are dying! I saw their bodies on the streets, smelled their flesh cooking in fires! And you, you're all bundled up in your bed! You brat!"

His eyes were wet but he wasn't crying. He was so full of anger, but his words came out clear. His headache was gone. Vash simply stared through blurry vision at her where she lay, straight faced in a big bed. "Little children died in front of me. I had to watch that. I tried to pull this little boy from a bus that'd been blown up, I pulled him out by the arm as carefully as I could, but the skin on his legs was pulled away by the metal he was stuck underneath. Then he died! It's all your fault! You showed them your angel arm so they could 'ooh' and 'ahh' and pay your bills! You let them use you as a crutch to the governments of the world, and all the police and militia in the world relaxed a little bit, and the protestors shut up, but they only got angrier over time! That little boy, and all the rest, they're your victims. You have to live with that, just like I have to live with July. You set up this line of dominos, and now you can't stop it. Or maybe you can, but you're just being selfish."

He coughed. "You're a real piece of work. Tessla isn't going to want you back in her life, and I don't either!" Coughing, he had to stop, to catch his breath.

She lifted her cup of water to him with a shaky arm. Vash refused it, and she set it back down, exhausted. Turning glassy eyes up to him, she sighed. "So this is what you're like when you're angry."