CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Transfer

PART FIVE…My Place in This World … "Baby bear, are you okay?" he asked, running into that pink room to hug her. He lifted her an inch off the ground, to spin around twice, then setting her down to check her over. "Did they do anything to you?" he whispered.

She shook her head but frowned. "What's this all about?" Pausing, she turned to stare at Rita. "We're not getting any privacy anywhere in this damn place, are we? Whether you leave the room or not…"

Rita smiled warmly. "I can give you my word that surveillance will stop for whatever duration you'd like. But I doubt my word - or anyone else's – will do. We will, of course, give you both total privacy. Communicate telepathically if you'd like," she suggested, stepping away from the room. The door shuttered closed, heavier than the medical room's door.

Tessla rolled her eyes. "We don't DO that, bitch."

"Honey, she wasn't being mean to you, there's no need to curse at her," Vash suggested softly.

"Nevermind her, tell me what's going on, daddy!"

Vash looked around for a seat and took one, waiting for Tessla to reassume her place upon a chair. "It's complicated, baby bear."

She narrowed her eyes. "Everything's complicated, daddy. Spill your guts."

Clearing his throat, Vash's eyes wandered around the room. "It's about your mom."

Tessla's face began to pink. "HER!? We're here because of HER!?"

"I know what you mean," he muttered. Meeting her eyes finally, his expression became serious. "Don't get angry yet. Wait till you hear the whole story: She's Agent Peace and she wants me to substitute for her while she's recovering from having her legs blown off and reattached." He stopped to catch his breath.

Sputtering for words, Tessla's face deepened to a brighter shade of pink. "Buh…so…wha…she…She wants you to…"

He nodded. "If I blow up this one mountain, dressed up in her costume, everyone will know Agent Peace is still active and all of this chaos will end," he added solemnly. His own cheeks pinked and he stared at the lines on the floor. "I'd have to use my angel arm."

"That's out of the question!" she roared. "She ought to know better than to ask you to do that! You just CAN'T use it anymore - your hair, and the memories, and-"

"I know, but maybe I need to 'man up' and do this," he argued, still facing downward. "Even if I don't want to, even though I absolutely disagree with what's going on here, and what Agent Peace does…They just can't cause Agent Peace-like damage on a large-scale without me. They need a plant," he explained, remembering what Rita had added to Vanessa's information, as he and she had walked to Tessla's room just a few minutes before. "And after I do it, everyone will behave again, and we can live our lives without fear. They've known about us almost this whole time we've been on Earth," he murmured, amazed still.

"You think you could do it?" she asked him, incredulous. "I…I just don't think you could handle it. The pain, the past, the power it'd sap from you…"

"Baby bear, even if it killed me, that'd be worth all of those lives."

She didn't reply. Instead, she stood and sat on his knee, wrapping her arms about him and burying her face in his neck, like when she was little. He felt her tears tickle as they fell. "I don't want to lose you, daddy, you're the only person in the world that I love," she sobbed in a weak, muffled voice.

Hugging her back with his good (fake) arm, he tried to comfort her. "Sweetie, you're all grown up! You don't need your daddy so much anymore – you're going to be 98 soon. One day you'll find someone you really love-"

"And ten or twenty or ninety years later he'll die," she sobbed miserably. "But you aren't going to die unless you mean to."

Vash's heart dropped another couple of notches. Even if you only get a day with them, it's worth it," he mumbled sadly.

"Is it really?" she asked, pulling away to look into his tired eyes. "It hurt so much to watch you lose her; I can't imagine the pain of it, to lose…Loving a human just doesn't make sense," she reasoned, sniffling. A fat tear fell from her eye and she itched its trail as it rolled away. "You're strong enough to do that, daddy, but I'm not." Another thought hit her, and she turned from crying in sorrow to crying in frustration. "Why can't we find plants to love instead? How come the only plant you found was such a crappy one? Is God playing some stupid-ass joke on us, that we're so alone?"

Vash sat, thinking. He was crying, again, now. It was completely heartbreaking to hear her talk like that. "We're not alone, Tessla," he replied, voice cracking. "I like my life…"

"Daddy, you're emotionally masochistic." It was a bad joke, but it did make him chuckle ever so slightly. "You're not really happy, you're just too damn nice to complain," she noted, sliding down onto the floor, to sit with her head resting on his knee. She gazed up at him. "You need a place where you can do your community service stuff and actually see results – you need to be able to use your compassion on a larger scale," she muttered, staring off as her mind raced. Yes! She had it, the answer to their dilemma!

"So, now you DO want me to blow up the mountain…?" he asked, confused. She could change her mind and chase new ideas so quickly and unexpectedly sometimes…

"Hell, no. So, what did she say to you?" she changed topics.

"Not that much. I was pretty upset, so I did most of the talking," he responded, blushing.

"What did she look like?"

"Um, pretty cut up. Her legs looked…really awful. I think she can see now; her one eye has a thick cataract or something, though. Other than that, she's the same."

"Did she act the same?"

He sighed, relenting to appease her curiosity. "She seems more relaxed. Maybe that was painkillers. I don't know. She isn't feeling well."

"Did she apologize?"

Vash opened his mouth to scold her, but paused. "Well, um, actually, yes, she did. She apologized to you, too, for not being a good mother," he said softly.

"…And for running away?"

He shook his head. "She said we wanted her to."

"I did," she agreed. "You know, I really can't believe she had the nerve to ask you to blow up a mountain. I really can't. What was her reasoning?"

Vash seemed to be growing impatient. "I really wasn't in there that long, you know? She knows I CAN blow up a mountain; maybe that's why she asked me. And baby bear, I really ought to get to that mountain, or else more people will die," he added, hiding how miserable he felt with a false smile. "I'll be back as soon as I can, but now I have to-"

"Yes, let's get to the mountain," she interrupted, standing and brushing dust from her butt. "…So you can watch me blow up a mountain."

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