"Are you ready?"

It seemed like such a simple question but the answer seemed so much more complicated. It was more than a matter of saying yes or no. Each word had a path that lay before it, the intersection in her life that she had reached. Which answer was the right one? Which path was the right one to take? It had seemed so easy the night before, she'd made her decision and she'd been sure about that.

Unable to sleep that night she'd lay awake and heard someone pass the door to her bedroom. Seeing the outer edges of the bedroom door shine with light that crept across the carpet she knew that she wasn't the only one awake in the house.

She'd gotten out of bed and crept cautiously across the floor. Laying her hand on the handle she'd pushed it down gently and peered out to investigate the source of the light. It emanated from the living area, low bursts of sound accompanying its journey across the hallway.

Leaving her room she had crept towards the light, the low sounds growing slightly louder in the reduced proximity between her and them. Peeking around the wall she had viewed her grandfather, the source of the low sounds the sharp breaths he took and released as quiet sobs shook his body. He'd seemed entirely oblivious to her presence as he sat hunched over with his arms running the length of his thighs, his hands tightly knotted together. Unable to see any more she'd turned swiftly, pressing her back against the wall and resting her head against it. She couldn't escape the sounds he made as she crept back to her bedroom and slid beneath the covers.

At some point after she'd returned to bed she had woken up from a restless sleep to see the sun brushing the horizon through the window. Her mind had been filled with questions as she'd gotten up and left her bedroom. She'd met her grandmother in the hallway as she'd walked towards the bathroom and been advised her grandfather was in there. She'd followed her grandmother to the kitchen as the knock had sounded on the door. Her grandmother had looked at her as she'd gone to answer it and admitted Boris.

It had been he that had asked her the question.

She was struggling with her answer, he could see that. He had come as promised and had arrived at the house early though he was not eager to start the journey he had to make. It had seemed convenient for him to come at this time as he had to pass by here but there was little doubt in his mind that it was perhaps best to give her a little more time. He left her deep in thought as he turned to her grandmother and advised her that he would return in a few hours on completion of his errands.

As Nine gazed into the mirror in front of him he thought back to the night before. He'd been unable to sleep in the knowledge that this would be the day that his granddaughter would choose to leave him. To leave the safety of his home and return to one that would most certainly be the place in which she would die. He'd known she was there watching him as the walls he'd built around his emotions came tumbling down. Had she walked away because she'd been ashamed of seeing him so?

She'd not seen the photograph that had fallen from his fingers and stared up at him from the floor, the photograph of the young, innocent girl that had turned into a thing of unspeakable evil in the blink of an eye. He had to ask himself if she had ever truly been innocent. Had she ever truly been pure?

His daughter had slipped away from him as swiftly as humanity had slipped away from her. His granddaughter was a reminder to him of that which he had lost in his daughter. Even though some of the things she had done were to him undesirable she was everything his daughter had never been. She was a tortured soul that was full of kindness and love, playful and mischievous with a heart and body scarred by every injustice she had ever faced.

Splashing his face with water he looked in the mirror again, the droplets running down his face as the tears he had shed last night had done. Where he had only seen himself in the mirror before he had splashed the water in his face he could see her there behind him. She was watching his reflection as he watched hers. Grabbing a towel he dabbed at the water on his face and dried his skin, rubbing his bare chest and mopping up the water that had dripped from his face. He turned to face her as he replaced the towel and saw her eyes drop to the space above his diaphragm. They returned to meet his with a question that he answered verbally.

"She always claimed it was an accident. Admittedly I believed her until I was blinded by the illusion she shrouded herself with no longer. She'd come home late one night without warning or reason. I waited up for her in her bedroom and watched her climb in through the window. She'd looked at me as though it were the most normal thing in the world for her to do. There was no shame there at all when she passed by me to come in here. I waited for her to come out. She claimed she didn't see me when she bumped into me with the scissors in her hand. I'd kept the lights off so I didn't disturb her brother or your grandmother."

A faraway expression lent itself to Robyn's features as she felt something brush her perception, "It was the night after she punched grandma in the stomach and she lost the baby."

Nine closed his eyes against the resurgence of a memory he had tried to bury a long time before. Another accident as Lily had claimed. A loss of motor control following an argument she'd had with her mother. An argument caused by the jealousy of a child yet unborn. A child that was defenceless, barely developed before it fell victim to its sibling's cruelty.

He opened his eyes when he felt a hand brush his cheek, drawing him back to the present. His granddaughter had closed the distance between them and was looking up at him. He could feel something being drawn out of him as her hand rested upon his face.

Robyn's voice seemed to echo in his head as her lips parted and formed words, "She's taken so much from you. She's taken so much from hundreds of people. I have to go back. I have to stop her."

Nine grabbed Robyn's wrist softly as her hand left his face and she moved away from him, "You have to stay. I can't let you leave. I can't...I won't let her take you from me."

Tears slid from Robyn's eyes as she smiled at her grandfather weakly, "She's already taken a part of me."

His hand released her wrist as he watched her leave the room.