Arc IV

Chapter XXXVIII

The Lost Art of Conversation

"Let me have another cigarette.

Sigh…

I'm a little tired.

I'm not used to this, talking so honestly about myself.

One thing I want to affirm: I don't have any sexual desire towards you, a woman. As I said before, I am very angry at the fact that I can only be myself. Being a single individual makes me terribly unhappy. I can't stand odd numbers. So I don't want to sleep with you as you the individual.

How wonderful it'd be if you could be split in two, and I could be split in two, and those four people could share a bed. Don't you agree?"

Haruki Murakami – The Kangaroo Communiqué – from The Elephant Vanishes

As soon as they entered her room the doctor let go from Black's hand and walked straight to the bathroom. The mercenary stood alone then, in the middle of the obscure bedroom with only the incessant sound of the rain outside to keep him company.

"I can see you," he said after a moment, noticing her shape sitting down on the bathroom floor. The contour of her body was the only distinguishable element in that small, dark redoubt; barely adorned by the weak shadows pooling all around her.

"You're one hundred and eighty-something, right?" She exhaled; eyes closed. "Shouldn't you be blind by now?"

Black tried to follow the woman, but he couldn't see past the tip of his own boots. Still, he ventured the room nonetheless, but now with a different destination in mind: he walked towards the balcony and opened the blinds to let some light in. The heat coming from the outside was still suffocating but at least the rain, the mere sounds of those drops falling from the sky, seemed refreshing enough. The doctor looked over her shoulder, but she didn't say a word: deep down she knew the storm was only going to grow stronger with time so maybe, just maybe, keeping the balcony open should prove useful in the future, allowing some fresh air in.

"Let me see that," Black said as he motioned towards the bathroom and kneeled in front of the woman – there still wasn't enough light for him to see the effects that Rosario's so-called punishment had inflicted upon the doctor's skin. The woman flinched and removed Black's hand from her cheek the second she felt his digits touching her face then she stood up, and made her way to the balcony: all those silver-colored raindrops, rocked by the new-born wind, were coming every which way and, some of them, were even venturing the room. She placed her hands on the railing; her body standing in the rain, then she cocked her head slightly, her chin gliding tenderly as if trying to summon those cold raindrops and make them slide down her still burning cheek.

"It doesn't look that bad."

Only then she looked over her shoulder to find him standing a few steps behind her; his arms were crossed over his chest. Still, she didn't say a word and Black, noticing the coldness in her eyes, raised his hands in a defensive stance, taking a few steps backward until the back of his knees touched the bed. He sat down on it and watched her move away from the balcony only to sit down on the floor, now safe from the rain but still focused on the outside.

The gunslinger looked away as he began to form the question inside the barrier of his lips. He waited on it for a few more moments, already anticipating the hell he was about to unleash. He braced himself when he felt ready, opened his mouth, and finally let it out.

"Why are you so angry at me?"

The silence that followed startled him deeply as it stretched across the room, demarcating a tacit barrier between them. He had expected her to see red all around the second she heard those words – he was expecting her words to lash out at him with the brutality of an awaken beast but the only sounds left there to break the night were the drunken, incoherent sentences of two garrison guards, headed upstairs with two of Rosario's girls. Their silhouettes, clumsily approaching the rooms across the one where they were staying were now visible at the other side of the balcony; there was music still coming from the inner courtyard below them: in spite of the storm, the carnival was far from over or so it seemed.

"Well, that's one less thing to worry about…" Black commented, seemingly unpreoccupied, the second he recognized those faces getting lost behind doors at the other side of the building. Those were garrison soldiers, just like him - and just like him, they were supposed to be working.

The woman brushed her own lips with the tip of her fingers as she considered his words: even when she still was not willing to talk to the man, a part of her couldn't help but feel aggravated by his careless remarks: of course that was one less thing for him to worry about; the fact that his fellow guards were now visiting those bedrooms could only make him look less and less guilty in the eyes of his superiors - he was not the only one doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing, there was something cynical about that train of thought, she reckoned bitterly, as if masquerading his own shortcomings in the pleasant domains of shared, collective shortcomings was somehow better than doing the right thing.

"You still haven't answered my question."

The woman turned around and raised her chin; staring intently into his eyes.

"You think I don't know that?"

Black took off his hat and let it rest on the bed. Then he got up and walked towards the balcony, walking past her, his body leaned against the doorframe, his eyes lost in the rain outside. He crossed his arms over his chest once more, then shook his head.

"Women with an attitude… never much liked those," he let out without so much as breaking a sweat. Something in the way he had said those words reminded her of the old Erron Black, the one she had met so many years ago; the one who never helped her get back home.

"Could you be any more of a misogynist?" Alexandra replied harshly. "Forgive me, I must have forgotten that you were born in the Mesozoic era; do you need me to tell you what that means?"

"Which one?" Black asked as he motioned towards her and kneeled in front of the hard-looking woman. "Misogynist or Mesozoic?" He smiled scornfully at her as he sat down on the floor, stretching his legs so his back could touch the nearest wall. "Not everything is my fault, sugar. I know it's just easier for you to blame it all on me: look, it's raining outside; it must be Black's fault."

He paused for a moment as he surveyed her face for expressions and emotions that weren't there anymore or so it seemed.

"I might be impulsive, but I'm not stupid: I know not everything is my fault. This is not on me – it's on you. When I left you on that mountain you could have chosen anything, but you chose this. I did not make you a prostitute, you made that choice yourself. I can't blame you for trying, though; I remember I blamed them when they killed Annie… Annie died because they murdered her, Annie died because they burnt down the place…" He stopped abruptly and leaned in closer. With eyes as cold as ice, Black went on: "Annie died because I wasn't there. Annie died because I chose another woman. It took me decades to accept it and, who knows? Maybe I would have died too if I had stayed with her that day, but we'll never know because it never happened." The cold reality in his words shook her from within but it wasn't enough for the woman to mitigate the anger she still felt towards him. She stood up and extended one of her arms, reaching out for him. The man took her hand in his and stood up as well, not really sure about what was really going on.

Standing now face to face, the doctor swallowed hard as she let her arms rest at the sides of her body.

"Let's get this over with," she commanded, "this is what you wanted all along, after all." Her blue dress, still wet from the rain, was glued to her body, exposing each curve, each shape but also each scar, each torturing event she had had to endure throughout her years in the brothel. Alexandra reached for the thin straps on her shoulders and began peeling them off and letting them slide down her shoulders.

It only took him a lighter and a coin.

"I'm not one of your clients," he said as his hands stopped her from taking off her dress, rejecting her.

"And still you paid like they always do," the doctor whispered as she laughed softly at him. "Why'd you do that for if you don't wanna sleep with me?" She reached for his torso and allowed her hands to romance his broad chest, yet the man removed her hands again, holding her by her wrists.

"I just wanted to give you a night of freedom. That's all."

"Freedom, you say. Freedom… Were you really that jealous of that poor boy, Black? You really can't see it, can you? This night, every other night, these red fingers marked on my cheek – it is your fault, whether you like it or not."

Feeling insulted by the simplicity of her accusations, Black let go of her wrists and moved away from her.

"I thought you wouldn't be working anymore, that is all. That's why I offered Rosario to pay for your exclusivity," he explained, although he was certain his words had been aimed for deaf ears. When she laughed at him he felt the despicable sounds of her venomous sense of humor traveling all across him, affirming his thoughts: no matter what he said to try and make her feel better, she would still blame him for everything she had had to endure all the same.

"Erron Black, the charitable one," she said, still unable to contain her laughter.

"You wouldn't even have to see me," Black stopped her. "If Rosario had said yes, I would have paid a monthly fee for you, ensuring your freedom – and you wouldn't have to sleep with anyone unless you truly wanted to… I would have done that much for you." Even when he was trying hard to remain calm her scornful smile was getting under his skin. But suddenly the woman stopped laughing; the look in her eyes had been stained with the symptoms of an ancient, bottled up anguish she was clearly trying hard to fight back.

"You would have paid a monthly fee for me and that…" she paused, unable to hold back the tears any longer. "That sounds like freedom to you?"

Alexandra tried to stare into his eyes, but the cowboy looked down, as if ashamed, and shook his head in silence.

"No."

She nodded, wordlessly, as she wiped the tears still streaming down her face.

"I'm really sorry that you can't see – that I can't make you see everything I've done to protect you, Alex… But this is where I get off. We've been here before; we know how this story ends, it was stupid of me to try to get close to you again only to feel all those things you made me feel back then, over and over again. You make me weak; you test me endlessly…" He placed his hands at both sides of her shoulders and squeezed her lightly into his chest then he leaned in closer to kiss her forehead and the woman closed her eyes, feeling powerless and destined to relive that night in the mountains time and again with each one of his abandonments.

He let go from her and motioned towards the door.

"Is it because I'm older now?" Her voice suddenly sounded weak, almost broken. "I am older than your type, right?"

The mercenary shook his head pensively as he tried to brush off the obvious implications of her questions: of course, she was no fool. She could see that now their ages had been evened, leveled in a fake sense of shared maturity. He couldn't stay with that woman no matter how much he actually wanted to; their time had been severed, her existence in his life had been reduced to a simple, lackluster dot lost in a sea of endless dots. With a heavy heart, Black leaned his back against the door, still unable to look her in the eye. He knew that offering her a positive answer, an affirmation to her bitter question could be strong enough to kill her and yet, deep down, he was certain that her aging was not the only reason for him to let go.

"It's because you used to remind me of someone. But now, when I look at you, I can't find that person anymore."

A deep, solemn silence wrapped them up then. She stood still in the center of the room, her eyes unable to look away and abandon that man with his back still glued to the door. His mind, still debating whether to let her go for good or not, was a menacing voice he could not quite comprehend.

Fearing the definitive nature of their encounter, the doctor sat down on her bed; her hands were resting on her stomach: "You're exactly like me but you have yet to see it – you told me that a long time ago, do you remember?"

He nodded.

"I am a doctor; you are a man that has all the time in the world and still neither of us had an option. You were right all along: we are the same damn thing."

Only then he raised his chin and allowed his eyes to find her.

"You had a choice," he said. "The census."

She clicked her tongue as she stood up again: "Come on, Black, don't…"

"What on earth makes a woman go from doctor to prostitute? You are a doctor, for fuck's sake!" He interrupted her. "Aalem would've never approved of this. Don't even try to…"

"What on earth? We're no longer on earth, sweetheart. And you don't get to use his name so freely," the doctor finally exploded. "You killed him – he could have been your son; there was a time when you even thought he was your son and still you murdered him like you didn't give a shit about him. You were judge, jury and executioner and a coward who couldn't even end the boy himself, so you had me pull the trigger for you… And now you dare patronize me? I am what I am because of you. I saved your life; the only thing you had to do was to get me to a fucking portal!" She stopped to catch her breath and take a good look at the man staring back at her with eyes full of disbelief: Black was petrified against the door yet she could see the rigid lines on his face growing darker by the second, his tense jawline, the veins in his neck becoming visible through his ancient skin and that breathing of his, hard and uneven, creating an unsettling pulse all around her. She had shaken the monster from within and now he was balancing his torment and his anger; she was finally making him face his own demons.

"All this lecture is because you resent me? Because I supposedly rejected you that night by the mountainside?" Black asked after a moment, spilling his poison all over her like a sinful viper trying to catch its prey. "Even if I hadn't abandoned you that night, nothing would have changed – you would have ended up alone all the same, you would have ended up repeating the same mistakes and throwing your life away by becoming a whore…"

She raised her hand but froze in place, unable to connect her palm with his face. The disgusted look in her eyes was dissecting that man into tiny, countless shards of an already fragmented existence. She approached him, still disturbed by his words but ready to do anything in her power to prove him wrong: yes, that night his rejection had shattered her into a million pieces and even long after that night, when she found out that he was a married man, she had felt his vicious eyes killing her all over again - but it wasn't enough to conceal the fact that he had been nothing but a cruel, selfish man all along. The truth was evident: had he helped her get back home when it still mattered, that night by the mountainside would have never existed.

"You say I remind you of someone, but you remind me of someone too. Your eyes… your eyes are just like his. There's something about your jaw when you get tense… Or the way you pace around the room when you don't know what to say… but I've always known you are not him. That night, when I tried to kiss you, I wanted to kiss you; I wasn't trying to kiss him. And I thought that, maybe, for a moment, that was what you wanted, I thought maybe you wanted it too; maybe you needed it as much as I needed it." She moved closer and trapped his body against the door and the man looked sideways, nervously. "Do you think you'll ever be ready to stand in front of me and not see a whore?"

The honesty in her question pained him. Deeply.

"Because every time I look at you, I see a man that has lived a ridiculously long life and I can see things too," the doctor added. "A man that's lived for so long, Black… I wonder just how many women you've slept with all over the years. How many, Black? How many? Is the number really that small that it makes you feel entitled to judge me?"

"I'm not judging you," he tried to defend himself.

"That's all you've ever done since you found me here," she said as she brushed his lips with the tip of her fingers, "and you still haven't answered my question."

"Too many," Black confessed, almost whispering the words.

"And how many of them slept with you for you, because they actually liked you, because they actually wanted to be with you? How many of them slept with you for reasons that had nothing to do with fear or power?"

He looked down, unable to answer.

"We are the same thing, Black. You were right all along." Forehead against forehead, the tip of her nose landed on the tip of his nose. "Then why do I have to be the one you reject?"

He opened his eyes and looked down instinctively. The woman moved closer, pushing his body back against the wall.

"I could be your great, great, great, great grandfather," The gunslinger managed to say; the last bastions of a poorly constructed defense finally collapsing all around him.

"But you're not."

Coldness in her eyes, romance in her body language. That incredibly austere and soft element in her voice that had captivated him only moments ago was gone: that woman used to fear him, but now she was staring back at him as if she held some sort of power over him; as if she had transformed him into one of her disposable clients.

"Back off, Alex."

"I will… As soon as you tell me why. Why did you say no to me? The word, does it make you feel empowered, does it make you feel superior, or was it just the thrill of watching someone struggle and suffer for no reason? Why, Black? Why did you keep me there? What for? There was no mission at all, at least not in that cabin."

"Sanctuary. I was protecting you – you and Aalem," he confessed.

"But what about the woman in the mountains? You were hurt when we met."

"Kano," Black explained, "a man named Kano was the one who hurt me."

"But I saw Aalem's notes – he wrote sighting, Black, what the hell did he see?"

"I don't know," Black whispered. "I didn't want him to grow up in the Palace so I took him with me to the cabin, and I told him stories about this deadly spirit embodied by a woman – I told him she was a demon, traveling from realm to realm and bringing chaos and death. He was so innocent…"

The man was hurt, and his pain was contagious. As soon as she noticed his eyes drifting away from the real her and focusing on the woman in the mirror, she shifted inside his arms and looked at her own reflection. As her lips moved, it was as if that other woman was the one talking to him, the one still trying to get to him.

"I've only ever wanted one thing from you, Black: a portal to take me back home; I never wanted your protection, your company… I never even asked for any of those things. As you can see, I survived a whole decade without you."

"And like you say, you haven't exactly lived those years, you merely survived them," Black answered softly, his eyes still unable to abandon that woman in the mirror.

"We both did," the doctor caressed his neck and allowed her hands to move up and reach the sides of his face, her eyes summoning his, finally bringing him back to reality. "Would it have been easier? To just sleep with you back then, give you what you wanted?" She asked as she rested her forehead against his chest.

"No."

The mercenary tried to put his arms around her, but his body felt so heavy now, as if having her body against his was the only thing preventing him from simply crumbling down to the ground. With her face still hidden in his chest, the doctor took a deep breath and finally gathered the courage to ask him: "There's something I have always wanted to ask you: what does it take for a man to become someone like you?"

The pause was long, meaningful.

"A lot, really."

She looked up, her eyes finding his. He looked tired, almost as if ready to give up.

"Time was always by your side, you could have been anything you wanted..."

He wasn't used to that kind of fighting – the emotional kind; the sincere kind, and it was clear that the battle was finally taking its toll on him. He spoke softly, the tone of his voice reduced to a mere lullaby: "By the time I became truly free to choose, it was too late. I was too old to change; killing for money was the only thing I knew how to do. And I was good at it."

"You were an old man in a very young body, that's no excuse." Even when she was trying hard not to sound harsh, a part of him ignited again with her words but the ignition was short-lived; his fire was nearly extinct.

"Do you have an idea of how fast society changes? Do you have an idea of how small is the window of opportunity for you to actually adapt to those changes? You may not notice it, but the perspective of time is truly a relentless thing to try to keep up with." The mercenary placed both of his hands on her hips as he finally let his body fall to the ground, flexing his knees for the woman to sit on his lap. "The changes are subtle, but they are always definitive. And you keep thinking that someday, things will go back to normal, but they never do. One day you wake up an old man in a brand-new world that does not belong to you anymore. I am adaptable but adapting is hard… It takes time; it's a very demanding activity. Now cowboys may be extinct, real cowboys, that is. But mercenaries… mercenaries are always needed," he paused and looked at her – her eyes were big and blue: she was listening. For the very first time, she was actually listening to him. "Same goes for prostitutes, I guess."

She smiled, finally.

"When you said I reminded you of someone, was it the nurse on the picture or the one that should have been your wife?"

"Bit o' both," he said, unable to conceal his surprise: even after all those years, she still remembered. The doctor shifted in his arms as she let her temple rest against his shoulder then she closed her eyes again, feeling exhausted. It took all of his strength to ask her the only thing he still needed to know. "Why didn't you join the census?"

The woman furrowed her brow, yet she understood it was time to open up.

"I didn't know if it was safe for me to do so," she said. "It might be ancient history now, but the moment you helped me out of that cell, I became a fugitive. I feared, and not just about my safety." She took a deep breath before she continued but she looked away; she couldn't afford to face him now. "I feared what I could find on the other side. My parents… Nathan… You had distracted me for so long that there were times when I completely forgot about them – and I felt guilty for that, I blamed you for that, I hated you for that… I chickened out. Just to think about the fact that my parents were old before I came here, just to think about that maybe they weren't around anymore and Nathan… that man loved me but no man can wait for so long, no man can search for so long without giving up so I thought: what if he moved on? Can I blame him for that? No, no, I can't."

He held her in his arms as tears fell down her face. The fear that had stopped her back then had been the same fear he had felt so long ago, when he decided to abandon Annie and look for Amanda. In the end, he had lost everything.

"There's no going back home for me now, Black. Not anymore," she sentenced. "And I thought about you too, I thought about all the things you would have been forced to explain if they found me trying to escape. I don't know why I was so loyal to you back then, you never really did anything to deserve that loyalty… yes, you fed me, and you provided me with a roof above my head but thinking back, truth is you were a complete asshole ninety-nine percent of the time," she chuckled, then sighed, ready to come clean: "I feared you – the possibility of missing you, that is. As crazy as it may sound there's something here – always has been. I know it; you know it. I don't know if it was born out of necessity or not, but I guess that's not the point anymore."

The mercenary ran his fingers through her black hair and smiled.

"It's a good thing you didn't step up during the census, though – I killed you in my story," he explained, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. "During the trial, that bastard tried to incriminate you, but I told them you had died in the fire to make sure no-one would try to track you down."

Something clicked inside of her; much like an epiphany – the consummation of a memory that never actually happened. The doctor guided his chin downwards, forcing the gunslinger to look her in the eyes: "So you actually did it then, even if it was only fictitious… you actually found the courage you lacked that night, the night you pulled the trigger, remember?"

He remembered. He remembered vividly.

The ex-Earthrealm cowboy stood up and walked up to her bed where he picked up his previously discarded hat. He ran his fingers through the many bullets adorning the garment until he stopped and pulled one out. He looked over his shoulder and ordered the woman to join him with a swift movement of his right hand. As she stood right next to him, he placed the chosen bullet in the palm of her hand and created a fist with her fingers, using his own.

"The bullet I fired at you… it was a warning, I never meant to hurt you. This is your bullet. That night… you were never in danger," he confessed as he removed his hand. The object weighed heavily on her palm – he had carved her name on it, Alexandra.

"But the shock… it was real. And you wounded me," she said, confused.

"Because you moved. I only kill for two reasons: money, and self-defense. You never attacked me, and no one ever paid me to kill you."

"But what if someone did? What if someone paid you to kill me?" She asked.

"Then it wouldn't be personal," Black said before laughing again; the sound of his laughter made her breathe once more: he was joking. "I just handed you a bullet with your name on it; your bullet. Need I say more?"

She clicked her tongue and moved her fist up and down, balancing the weight of the bullet.

"That day in the cell, when you said you'd kill me to spare me the shame of a public execution – you were bluffing then?" The doctor asked as she sat down on the bed, her eyes unable to abandon that projectile still resting on the palm of her hand.

"I needed you to talk, I was hoping for a juicy story; I never expected you would turn out to be just a frightened girl that just wanted to go back home," Black explained simply as he sat down next to her. "If anything, I must say, that was actually rather endearing."

She stared into his eyes, quieting a million questions. The man wrapped her hand in his, the bullet disappeared from her sight yet the weight of what it actually represented was something she just couldn't overlook.

"Why are you giving me this now, Black?"

"It's a reminder," he said, "of who I am. Don't try to change me, I am who I am, I'm not looking for redemption."

"I know," The doctor whispered then she stood up and placed the bullet in one of the drawers of her wardrobe, inside the little box containing her jewelry. Black observed her in silence as she left the room only to return a few minutes later, carrying two glasses of wine in one hand and an open bottle in the other. She set the bottle on the floor and handed him one of the glasses, smiling fondly at that man now practically lying on her bed. They both drank in silence, then she picked up the bottle in order to refill his glass, but he refused, placing the now-empty glass on her bedside table.

"This is when you say you're sorry and we patch things up," the doctor said as she finished her wine. The mercenary rested his head on her pillow, yet he couldn't close his eyes.

"I am sorry, Alex – but I just don't feel guilty. I don't feel responsible."

He held her hand in his as she sat down on the bed. She nodded in silence before placing her glass right next to his.

"When I said you needed to get some real sleep, I wasn't just trying to tell you off. I meant that, Black. You've been working nonstop for weeks now; you could really use a good night's rest." The tone of her voice was definitely more amicable now – finally showing the real her, the version of her that had reminded him of Amanda in the first place. The mercenary closed his eyes as he felt the weight of her fingers intertwined with his; finally able to acknowledge the specific weight of her whole being. He opened his eyes again to discover the woman still sitting on the bed, watching him. He knew there was a certain emptiness in beauty when used as an end and not as a means to an end and yet now, in the dead of night and tenderly rocked by the rain and the wind, after the calm and the storm, he was able to see past that sacrosanct yet adulterated beauty of hers. Their points of view and opinions about everything they had been through together had yet to be reconciled but at least, it was a beginning. At least that awkwardness that had ruled their past encounters wasn't there anymore.

When she looked over her shoulder, he was already sleeping. She removed her hand, trying hard not to wake him up then she walked up to the balcony, and placed her hands on the railing once again; the cold rain instantly washing over her face began to feel balsamic, even soothing for her senses. She went to her bathroom and took a bath, then she lit up a cigar as she picked her old, long black t-shirt.

She climbed to bed and rested her body beside his; her free hand running through the single stripe of hair adorning his head.

The man opened his eyes. Those big, coffee-eyed eyes she liked so much.

"I'm not meant to be caged, Black," the lump in her throat was evident; her voice was revealing a sadness that she clearly couldn't get rid of, "not even inside your box of memories." She stood up and tried to compose herself wiping her tears and moving near the balcony. The wind was blowing harder now; the heat that had enveloped the city was finally subsiding.

"We'll find a way," Black tried to sound reassuring. He sat on her bed but stayed there, giving her space.

"To do what, exactly?" She questioned him, trying hard not to start a war again. "Just how many times do you think I can start over? There's no new beginning for me, Erron. There's no clean slate."

Only then, when he sensed her giving up on everything she had fought for, he stood up and wrapped his arms around her. The woman moved away from him, as if ashamed to expose her private defeat.

"I know, but maybe you'll find something that'll make you feel better," he said. "Just like I did. Working here reminded me of my own past, of things I had forgotten a long time ago. It was brief, and I blew it – but I enjoyed it while it lasted nonetheless."

The woman turned around and shook her head – the bitterness written all over her face was still there. She caressed his cheeks, biting her lower lip as an attempt to hold back those words she could not let out.

"What?" Black demanded.

The woman sighed.

"Sometimes I wonder why you are still alive, what's keeping you alive," she finally said. "All you do is reminisce, and wish for things and people that are long gone." He opened his mouth, but the doctor silenced him by placing her index finger on his lips. "All you do is mix your past with this obnoxious present – but this is not your time, and this brothel is not the saloon you grew up in… The woman I remind you of, I'm not her, just like you're not Nathan. You might have his eyes, but I don't see him when I look at you and that's dangerous. You're dangerous. You're like a time blender that confuses me, and distracts me, and makes me believe that I'm that woman from your past when I know, when I'm sure I'm not her because at times I'm not even myself anymore; I just don't feel like myself anymore and that makes you dangerous, Black, you're far more dangerous than your weapons and your skills combined – you are the danger."

Black stepped away from her, broken by her words.

"Black, you are the one who tries to murder me in my sleep and kiss me only moments later and that's all you'll ever be, that is all you should be – but you're not, because you're constantly trying to find someone in me that's not here and you make me believe that I can find someone else inside of you; someone I know, someone I loved, someone I lost… But it's just us, Erron."

In his mind, the memory of his own dream resurfaced and made him remember everything about that feeling, the one he had experienced so long ago: those transfixed faces, subjugated by his particular type of love: who was he making love to? Amanda? Alexandra? Were they truly interchangeable? His need had blurred the frontier separating those bodies but only now he could finally understand why: he wasn't trying to merge those women, he was only trying to merge the man he had been with the one he was now, the man who couldn't age – the man who couldn't love a simple mortal.

Abashed and confused, the cowboy moved farther and farther away from the doctor.

"Don't shut me out now, Erron," Alexandra whispered, trying her best to reach out for him. "Not when we're alone." She watched him in silence as he sat on her bed, his shoulders stooped forward, as if the weight of the world was pushing them down.

"I'm sorry," Black mumbled after a while. Fallen eyelids, broken voice. "I should have taken you home. You're right; none of this would have happened if I had just taken you home. But I didn't want to take you home – at first because I thought you were hiding something but then when I found out you were just a frightened girl it was too late: Amanda was already there, and Annie." He opened his eyes to find her kneeling in front of him. "And then the fire and those other memories – the ones I didn't want to remember. Letting you go was one of the hardest things I've done but I had to. You were changing me; I couldn't allow that to happen. Then it was the trial, then prison… you know the story, everybody does. And then you again…" The doctor placed her hands on his knees, stretching her back. "I can't see her in your eyes when I look at you now; you've changed – but even so, I'm still here."

As she reached out for him, the soldiers that were coming out of the rooms across the courtyard leaned on the railings and looked in their direction – the open curtains revealed a scene that had nothing to do with the actual events taking place inside the doctor's room: she was kneeling down in front of him, his broad shoulders were now thrown back.

"You still up, Black?" One of them yelled carelessly. The mercenary cursed under his breath but signaled the doctor to stay right where she was, where they couldn't see her. "Time to go, Black, we're on duty," the other soldier added mockingly, unable to contain his laughter any longer. Black looked over his shoulder and waited until they were gone. Only then he stood up, placing his hands at the sides of the doctor's shoulders for her to get up as well.

"I paid for the whole night," he mumbled apologetically. "You don't need to worry about going back out there, still a few hours till dawn." As he began to pick up his hat, his guns, and his bandolier, the woman glued her back to the nearest wall and grinned softly at him.

"At first I had a different role here – a role that had nothing to do with the sexual activity."

"But then what? It grew on you?" Black let out, puzzled by her revelation and causing the woman to shake her head disapprovingly.

"Sorry," he said.

"I came here thinking it was just a bar, just another canteen," she clarified.

"It's called The House of Pleasure for a reason, honey."

"Yeah, I noticed," Alexandra whispered. "And when I noticed, I did the only thing I could: I bargained my stay. The girls were in pretty bad shape so my services as a doctor were really appreciated. I stayed with them, did some research, helped them get better and Rosario let me live here, in exchange."

"Oh, healthy whores. Thank you." Black inclined his head in reverence.

"Anyway, I did a pretty good job, you know?"

The gunslinger put on his hat and walked up to her before she could go on.

"Let me guess: you did such a wonderful job that they didn't need you anymore."

The doctor nodded her head in silence.

"Classic Rosario…" Black laughed.

"So, she made me choose: I could go, but I had nowhere to go and no money – or I could stay."

"And work for her," Black finished for her. "Rosario told me about everything you've done for this place. It's remarkable, really." He cupped her face with his hands.

"Did she tell you why I did those things?" Her expression darkened yet the mercenary took a deep breath a placed a soft kiss on her forehead.

"I lost a kid, too."

She shook her head; the feeling of having his hands on her face was burning against her skin.

"It's not the same. You didn't know."

His arms enveloped her tightly, quickly molding her shape against his chest. The woman let go after a few seconds, grinning tenderly at him while fighting back the tears. She walked him to the door and opened it - the last symptoms of the carnival were still marching down the corridor; still drunk, and still happy.

He leaned against the doorframe,

"I did not reject you that night," Black confessed. "I kissed you back, under the mask." Taken aback, the doctor tilted her head back, visibly stunned by his unexpected revelation. "I'm not wearing a mask now, Alexandra. Why don't you finish what you started?"

As she wrapped her hands around his neck, his parted lips welcomed her long-awaited presence in his mouth. Pinning her waist back against the door, the mercenary let his hands roam the sides of her body, exploring a territory that didn't feel hostile for the very first time. Her tongue danced with his tongue in a ballet that was not polluted by the skills of professionalism – soothing and tender, forehead against forehead; her hands on his chest, tugging at his jacket and pulling him closer. When the doctor broke the kiss to catch her breath, the shadow standing behind Black and growing darker by the second appeared barely in her peripheral vision but the woman paid no mind as the gunslinger leaned in and rested his lips on the tip of her nose.

El-A's voice broke the spell – she had seen them.

She had heard them.

"Funny, I thought you hated him…" The girl began, "But then again, maybe every single thing we thought we knew about you is wrong; beginning with who you are. Right, Alexandra?"