A/N: I have *all kinds* of head cannon involving what actually happened to David and Rachel after his return, and this is part of it. Meant to follow 15. Personal Space.
1. Goodbye
Looking back on it, there really never had been any other ending to this ethical fiasco once the pieces had been put into play- good luck convincing all of the others that killing was occasionally a kindness given instead of a sin once Cassie had taken the ethics platform, however- and David had been a person (just like she is in many respects) before he had been a traitor or a killer himself, and she couldn't not give him the only final closure she could. Regret was in some ways too strong a word to sum up the emotions she felt in the wake of the crime-that-wasn't that she had committed this afternoon, and at the same time it wasn't a big enough word to encompass all the voices, images, and what-ifs that chased themselves in dizzying, turbulent layers around her brain in tune to the shrieking cloud of greedy gulls over her head and the dull background pounding of the incoming tide on the distant rocky shoreline below.
She had murdered today- not killed or defended but executed as surely as if she was one of the black masked men of old leading the condemned to the block, stake or the noose, and she had likewise done it like it was her job. David hadn't truly given her any other options- even if he hadn't practically begged her to be released from the small furry prison of his body he was clearly dangerously unhinged by the fate she had helped trick him into months and months of missed homework, lost sleep and un-won skirmishes ago, possibly (hopefully) even more so than the person Cassie, Ax, all of them saw when they looked at her before or during a battle; unlike Tobias, David clearly has never been meant to be more than defeated by becoming a nothlit.
It was beautiful where Rachel left him behind her that day- the sunset would shine on the pile of rocks she had covered the pitifully tiny grave she had dug him, and someone could stand here, watch the world and muse on its general random unfairness; if she played her cards right she'd just enough time to fly by Erik King's house and either inform or convince him to find David's parents after the war- on the off chance she couldn't- before she was expected to show up for family dinner.