It was two days later of not moving besides when he moved me when Mickey finally snapped. I was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
"Tina, you have to make an effort" he forced. "You have to get your system moving. You can't just waste away." I turned my head away, I didn't want to listen.
"What about that debt? To repay, you have to move" he said, coldly, and I gasped. That was below the belt, and we both knew it.
"I don't have the energy. I can't move" I said, feeling like a child who complains at a hill. Mickey made me feel guilty. "Everything has gone wrong since I quit those drugs" I muttered. I saw Mickey hesitate.
"What if you get some, then?" he asked, as if he really didn't want to.
"I would probably feel better. But I dumped all of it" I replied evenly. Mickey still looked uncomfortable.
"You have some?" I gasped. He looked away as he nodded.
"Is that really surprising? I'm a drug dealer" he said harshly, but I got the feeling the harsh tone was pointed inwards. I saw then why he was so uncomfortable: he had brought some drugs, but when I had gone clean he had pretended he hadn't any.
I reached out my hand. He stood, looking reluctant.
"You can't go through this without it?" he asked, not moving further away. I simply moved my hand a little towards him.
Heading into my closet, I heard him mess with something in there, probably his pack. He came back out with a syringe.
"Tina" he said, but couldn't seem to think of anything more.
I got the drugs, and shot it into my arm. Slowly, I felt the rush building. It hadn't been too long since my last shot, and my body responded immediately. I felt energized, lighter, and stronger. The sugar blue did its job- it speed up my body, bolstered it, giving it energy that it did not have.
Pulling myself up, I looked at Mickey. For the first time in a few days, I truly looked at him. He was struggling, that was clear. I saw the emotions built up behind his control, threatening to flood him. I wondered if the dam was about to burst.
I thought of a hundred things to say, and then discarded them as I stared at him, each one risking a break of the barrier.
"Should I have done it otherwise?" I asked softly, cringing at the thought. "I mean, I doused them in motor oil!" I laughed roughly, and then drew a deep shaky breath.
"Could you have shot them?" Mickey asked softly, and I shook my head.
"Not more than one." I said honestly. I would have shot one, but I knew then I would have lost my nerve.
"How close was that planet to where we had docked?" he asked in the same soft voice.
"Half an hour's light jump" I said.
Mickey shook his head. "Too close for leaving them behind because they would have been found. And I don't think that even together we could have shot them all. You could have gassed them" he suggested, but it was my turn to shake my head.
"I don't put poisonous gas into the canisters into the living quarters. Only sleeping gas and that's only for an emergency."
I saw Mickey think it through, and then nodded.
"I don't think we could have done it any different, darlin" he confessed, looking at his hands. I guessed he thought they were just as red as I thought mine was. I considered that for a few moments, and then settled it in my head.
"I'm giving the medicines away" I said, decided. "I won't sell them. I don't think I could take money from them." I twisted my hands, and thought of how I felt about that load.
Tainted was a good word, that money would feel tainted.
Mickey nodded. He looked away.
"I have my own repaying to do, but my way is different" he said. I looked at him curiously. "I'm going to ruin them, every mother's son" he said angrily. I sensed that he had done what I hadn't managed: he had turned the hate outwards.
"They tried to destroy me in the Game, well now I'm going to beat them all with their own tricks. I'm going to make sure something like this never happens to us again."
I saw then clearly how our thinking was divided, and from this second always would be. I loved him, and he loved me, but we had missions now, and they were very different. I would repay by giving what I could, to seek repentance. I knew my life was going to get hard.
He would repay blood for blood. I wondered at that I ever thought that was a surprise. Mickey had never been what all those different holy books called a good man. Maybe he was a bad person, maybe he was the kind of person I should have run from, locked myself away from but it was too late now. I loved him; good for bad, to death do us apart.
"Do we part ways, then?" I asked softly. "For a while at least" I amended when he looked up sharply.
"Yes" Mickey nodded. "It's time I stopped running and started fighting." He gathered himself up, and set his jaw. I saw that he was ready to start that life.
"Let's make a promise." I said rashly. His face turned to mine, expressionless. "Let's not look back"
He seemed to wonder at me for a second, and then agreed. We wouldn't look back, and each in our own way.
"Where are we headed? You're flying the ship" I reminded him. My words shocked him out of thought.
"One of my bases" he confessed. "The closest one to here. It's just an old ship floating in space, but its serves its purpose. I have what I need to get onwards from there"
Against my will, my eyes flooded with tears. "I wish this hadn't happened, that you didn't have to go away" I said suddenly, and Mickey tucked me into this arms.
"Shh" he said into my hair. "So do I, but we promised. We won't look back. Don't cry, darlin, and don't look back"
I gulped my tears, and sat still in his arms while we both thought. I thought about my promise. If I would never look back again, I had to change. I knew that.
I had to change how I traded, how I lived. I couldn't live for the Game now, couldn't just count the deals as profits to be spent on fun and random pastimes. I had to do some good work, and I knew that the good work was harder than I had done before.
Likewise, Mickey had to do some bad work, and in a strange twist I felt that that bad work might just be as hard as the good work.
We sat and said nothing for a long time. Then I drew away.
"How about some food?" I asked, not wanting to break the silence, but my stomach was painfully empty. He nodded silently.