The cello had not gone over well with the guards. They had not been fond, because it meant they had to do more of their actual job, instead of watching the television and occasionally looking at the video feed of his room. Every time he was allowed to play with the instrument, an armored guard stood outside, looking bored and irritated. Often, they drew straws on who would have to stand watch, and the loser was never happy about it.

Slaine found that he didn't care. His eyes had fallen on the cello, and it hadn't mattered. He remembered how his father used to play, his big hands moving delicately along the finger board, both strong and graceful. He remembered Bach, Tchaikovsky, and Vivaldi. Of winter nights by the fire place as they practiced together, and summer days when Slaine could convince his father to take a break from research for a duet.

The glares and huffs of the guards hadn't mattered at all. Not a whole lot else had. He'd spent as much time with the instrument as he could, and he'd forgone any other activity to spend even one more second with it. His hands would grace the instruments deep brown curves, and he'd play.

It was childish at best, since the cello had never been his instrument before, but he didn't mind. Even in his unskilled hands, hands that weren't much good for music anymore, the cello sang. Every deep, resounding sound it made was something philosophical to him. Even mistakes were a blessing, and there was something profound about leaving the violin behind for the cello. He'd been a different person then, with his stubby fingers, his small, quarter sized violin, and the calluses that hardened his left hand. It was different, and he could never be that person again.

The guards of course did not like it, but he had been learning to ignore them before. With the cello in his hands, it was like they didn't exist. The prison walls faded away, and it was only him and the sound as it echoed around him.

On the second day, they made him eat before they would give him the instrument. He had expected something in this vein the minute he showed interest in anything, but it happened much faster than he had anticipated. It just served to show how obviously he enjoyed the instrument, and how easy it was for them to manipulate him into doing what they wanted. The taste in his mouth wasn't bitterness; it was resignation. He had suspected, and as it turned out, he had suspected correctly. He ate the food, and they brought him the cello.

On the third day, he'd practiced with bruised fingers for hours. When the guard finally retrieved the instrument, the woman had given him a comment that wasn't quite a compliment. She did not take the chair that accompanied the instrument with her. This was a step in the proper direction.

He slept most of the time that he didn't have the cello in those short days. If sleep eluded him, he'd lie in bed, moving his fingers as if he was playing, trying to regain the muscle memory in his fingers that he thought had been long lost. If he did neither of those things, he read. The book he'd happened to pick up first was a harlequin novel of some sort, and he was more than happy to admit that its poor composition was enough to distract him.

It was the fifth day that he got his actual chance. One of the less enthusiastic guards had lost the draw that day, and she was prone to wandering off. She'd had a shift two days ago, but she had been uncharacteristically vigil. After five days of no incidents, she and her fellow guards seemed to think there wasn't much of an issue. The cello had been accepted as a new norm.

The guard had slipped away for just a few moments, and he'd taken the time to remove one of the strings. The A string, because that had seemed appropriate. He'd been expecting someone to notice, for one of the guards in the office to simply glance over at the recording of his room, and see that something was off. Or for one of them to realize that his playing had stopped, and wonder why. That did not happen. When they took the instrument away that evening, they didn't even notice that one of the strings was missing. They also left the chair, as they had for the past two days.

It was enough of a chance. He'd seen a few hangings on Mars; he knew how the general mechanics were supposed to work.

It had not worked.

He'd waited till that evening, hoping that the night guard would not notice. What he hadn't counted on, was that his neck seemed a lot stronger than he'd expected after starving himself. He also had not accounted for the very short drop he was allowed.

It had been the longest six minutes of his life, before the night guard had rushed in and gotten him down.

In hindsight, it was a stupid choice to begin with. He had not anticipated that if his neck didn't break from the fall, that he would just sit there strangling to death. He knew what drowning was like, and he'd wanted nothing to do with loss of air ever again. It was a slow torturous way to die, and even if he knew he deserved that, he didn't want it. But even admitting that made him greedy.

He'd had his chance to die in the moon base. To be crushed by debris, or to have space have its way with him. He'd seen what it had done to Marylcain, it had felt like a suitable end at the time. But he'd been greedy. He'd had his chance, but he'd seen Kaziuka's orange kataphract dance in front of him, and he'd dashed out, like the impulsive child, not the stalwart leader. He'd picked his path, and he'd suffer for it. Beggars couldn't be choosers, and he felt disgusted with himself at how happy he was that he hadn't died of strangulation. As if he deserved such choices anymore.

Now, all he felt was weariness so whole that he could feel it in his bones. He let the doctor poke and prod his aching neck without sound or protest. He'd tried, and he'd failed. He knew he'd have to keep trying until he succeeded, but at that moment, he was too tired for any of it. He wanted to sleep, to have a nice dream, of the cello under his finger tips and the bow in his hand, of beautiful women with clear blue eyes and of a loyal friend long dead. He added that cello to the long list of things that he was never going to see again.

He moved his hand to cover his eyes. He didn't want to cry, but there was no helping it. He couldn't have stopped it, just like he couldn't stop the rush of emotions leaking out of him, or the shaking of his hands, or the air he was breathing. He couldn't stop any of it, and he'd been a fool to think he could.