Chapter 2: Reconciliation

Spoilers for Tales from the Borderlands ye be warned, here we go

"Alright now, high command has sanctioned your little trip", Marshall Friedman announced, when he stepped into the corridor. "Three days out, then she wants you back here in Sanctuary."

Athena had known, even before the Marshall had entered. It had been easy to overhear Friedman talking to Lilith via ECHO. She rose from her bunk and waited calmly for the tanned lawman to unlock her cell. "Thank you, I guess."

Friedman chuckled. "You're thanking me for letting you back on one of the deadliest known planets? Well, you're welcome."

It would have been so easy to leave, once the latch had detracted. She would just have needed to run. She would have cleared the building before the Marshall noticed. And she would have been inside the Fast Travel system before anyone raised an alarm.

But Athena was tired of running. Apart from the obvious fact that she didn't want the Crimson Raiders on her heels yet again, the events following her capture had left her emotionally drained. The retelling of her involvement in the Elpis incident (twice) had filled here with guilt and self-abhorrence once again. The intervention of The Watcher had left her utterly shocked and in turmoil. And the reunion with Claptrap had just been another reminder of all the wrong she had done in her time.

She needed to gather her thoughts, to find peace.

And therefore she had asked for leave from the little prison cell the Raiders had generously given to her. Just a short little leave to set everything straight.

Athena followed the Marshall back into his small office. The walls hid behind several layers of wanted posters, a rocking chair stood behind a huge desk and another, much more comfortable bunk was set up in the corner of the room. Had Nisha had a similar office in Lynchwood?

"Okay, one physical shield, one plasma-sword, two storage-units, one civilian, one for weaponry", Friedman announced, while piling the objects on the desk. "That's all. Sign here, please."

Athena had been halfway to the door and turned slowly. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"Yeah, sure it is. No signature needed."

"I'm getting back my weapons?"

"Wasn't my idea, but Lilith decided to trust you." Friedman shrugged. "Quite impressive, given that she wanted you shot dead two weeks back."

Adding another item to the list of things she didn't understand, Athena quickly gathered up her gear. Technically she was now fully capable of running for it, but there was no immediate reason to do so. Her odds of getting any answers about this alien decreased tenfold with every mile she veered away from Sanctuary.

"Remember, three days!", the Marshall pointed out.

"Don't you worry, I will definitely miss your kind and comfortable accommodations", Athena muttered and headed out of the door. The second Friedman turned his gaze away from her, she started to run. She turned left, weaving through the pedestrians like an obstacle course, took the stairs to the town square three at a time, jumped over Claptrap who had accidently rolled in her path and then she stood in Pierce Station, selecting Hollow Point from the Fast Travel system, hardly out of breath.

"Here we go", the assassin whispered, before dissolving into a stream of data, her mind travelling through the all too familiar blue tunnel and less than five minutes after Friedman had unlocked her cell, Athena was standing in Hollow Point, blinking her eyes to adjust to the darkness inside the cavern.

Until now, she had thought getting off Sanctuary would be her main problem, but slowly it dawned on her that the task ahead was much, much more difficult. Suddenly, Athena was afraid, a kind of fear that caught her completely off-guard, because her instructors at Atlas hadn't trained her to ignore this kind of anxiety.

The fear of dealing with consequences.

No wonder why the instructors had never even mentioned it.

Athena glanced down the road and spotted the lights emanating from the local branch of Scooter's Garage. The shutters were still up, she could hear the sound of an angle grinder and all of it resulted in an elusive, tugging feeling at her heart.

She couldn't bring herself to walk over just yet, so she spun on her heels and headed for the Purple Skag bar. Perhaps a drink would calm her down sufficiently. The bouncer at the door gave her an inviting smile; clearly, he was new to Hollow Point.

"Holy Crawmerax and all his attendant offspring!", the bartender shouted, the second Athena entered the bar. "Look who's back in town!"

The assassin glared, but the man behind the counter just flashed her a grin. He was simply happy to see one of his patrons, he didn't mean to alert a mob of armed people that had just been waiting for the call. Something else she hadn't grown quite accustomed to. The majority of Hollow Point above a certain level of sanity was quite friendly actually. All of them had a criminal background worthy of Pandora, but they held together in an amiable 'we're-all-sitting-in-the-same-boat' fashion, as long as one didn't get on the wrong side of them or someone paid them to do otherwise.

"Good to see you again!", the barman continued, while Athena quickly scanned the bar for hostiles, before taking a seat at the counter. "And in one piece, come to that. First one's free! Here, I've got some Zaford-whiskey left..."

Another patron at the bar cleared his throat loudly and deliberately.

"Oh, bugger off!", the bartender exclaimed. "I'm not forcing it down your throat and as long as I'm alive I still have a saying in what I sell in my bar!"

The man at the counter calmly drew a pistol. "As long as you're alive", he repeated. His drawling accent immediately marked him as a member of the Hodunk Clan. "Now, as long as I'm controlling your life, I'm sure I've got a say as well. Get rid of anything even remotely Zaford-ish right now."

There was a gunshot, some shattered glass and a strange whining sound, when the barman activated a shocker in the Hodunk's barstool. The Clan member instinctively pulled the trigger, but the shot went wide, before he was thrown bodily off his seat, still twisting and gasping on the floor. The pistol had dropped from his grip.

"Won't be trying that again, will you?!", the bartender shouted, while the bouncer entered, lazily grabbed the troublemakers leg and dragged him outside. Athena carefully rose from her own stool and leaned against the bar, not touching the footrest either for safety reasons.

"I love these", the barman continued, gesturing to the smoking seat and pouring Athena's drink at the same time. "Very handy. Springs rigged them up for me. Said something along the line of no more killing than necessary. Clever girl. Well, you of all should know."

Athena pressed her lips together, feeling a tingling sensation in her chest just by hearing the name spoken out loud. Springs. Janey Springs. Quickly she grabbed the freshly poured drink and quaffed it off. The alcohol burned in her mouth and warmed her stomach, but it did nothing to the increasing nervousness.

She had been gone for more than a month. She had lost her ECHO but that shouldn't have kept her from calling. She had been on the run from two of the deadliest people on the planet but somehow she could have tried to make contact, to explain, to apologize. As it was, she had left Hollow Point amazing two days before her own wedding without even leaving a note behind. Mere hours before the Slab King in person showed his face in town. What would Janey have made of this? How would she react when seeing her again?

Athena frankly didn't know and it was terrifying.

There was no one else she could go to, no one to talk with, no one to trust. Meeting Janey had been the only good thing to happen to her in her whole, brutal, miserable life. And what if Janey decided to pack her in after this episode? After all, she had ample reasons: Athena had lied, run off, never even tried to contact her...

"Another?", the barman asked compassionately.

Slowly Athena shook her head, idly turning the empty glass in her fingers.

In the end it all boiled down to two options really: She could confront Janey or she could return to Sanctuary with her tail between her legs. The interesting question was if the latter was worse than rejection.

She was tired, so tired of running. There was so much weighing her down, so many burdens and so much confusion. When she and Janey had returned to Pandora, her life had appeared to slow down, to give her time to rest and let go. And it had worked, for years, no bounty hunts, no more fighting than what was called for on Pandora, she had taken a job with the delivery service, even her nightmares had started to fade away. Until she had agreed to watch over the fosterlings of old Felix.

She longed for that peaceful life. More so for Janey.

Abruptly she swirled around and headed for the door.

She had marched off to combat time and time again and never had she been as anxious as now, walking down the empty streets of Hollow Point to the garage. It would have been easy, so easy, to turn and run. Delaying what in Athena's mind had already become the inevitable.

Carefully she peeked into the garage and felt another tug in her chest, when she spotted Janey. The junk dealer had her back turned towards the entrance, leaning against a work bench, and was chatting with a customer who was inspecting his newly repaired Outrunner. For what seemed like eternity, Athena just stood and watched and listened to Janey's voice, as she spoke of shock absorbers, reinforced cockpits and an atmosphere in which people could simply burn gasoline to power their machines.

It was a disturbingly peaceful scene on this planet of fire and blood.

Eventually Athena shuffled closer, without making a sound, but somehow Janey noticed or felt or whatnot and she stopped midsentence and spun around, pistol in hand. Athena raised her shield reflexively, but Janey still hadn't developed the Pandoran custom of shooting away without further ado and no bullets flew. The two women simply stood and looked at each other, Janeys expression quickly changing from surprise to disbelief to sorrow to a twisted mixture of emotion that Athena couldn't interpret and she didn't want to, quickly lowering her shield and looking at her boots.

"Who's that?", the customer asked curiously, peeking over Janeys shoulder. Another Hodunk, judging by the accent. What were those bastards doing in force in Hollow Point anyhow? "Never seen her in town. Do you know..."

"Out", Janey commanded, her voice cold and challenging, her gaze still fixed on Athena who doubled over in shock. "Come back tomorrow if you want your Runner, but for today I'm closed."

"Hey, lady, the car is right here and it looks good and ready for road war", the Hodunk complained, while Athena had to breath very deeply in order to calm herself, realizing the cold command to leave hadn't been directed at her.

Janey pointed her pistol in the vague direction of her customer, still refusing to let Athena out of her eyesight. "Ah, but you'll leave nonetheless, won't you? You don't want to rebuff me, remember, because if you do that, you rebuff the whole franchise of Scooter's Garage and thereby Scooter himself. And as Scooter is currently working for the Crimson Raiders, rebuffing him..."

The Hodunk made a run for it.

"Catch-a-Ride!", Janey called after him. She tossed the pistol aside carelessly (a stray shot went off and hit the wall, increasing the Hodunk's speed drastically) and slowly walked over to Athena. The former assassin couldn't look the mechanic in the eye, her heart pounded relentlessly and a painful lump formed in her throat.

"I'm sorry", she blurted out. Janey's steps came to a halt. "I'm so incredibly sorry. I should have called, I should have explained..."

"There's no need to explain." Janey's voice was soft and sorrowful. "Nothing to worry about. One of your friends already told me everything."

"One of... what?" Athena looked up in surprise, finally returning Janey's look.

"Thin guy, red scarf, black goatee, pet hawk? Does that ring any bells? Well, he came here some four weeks ago, wanted to know where you could be found and inconveniently I had absolutely no idea. But we still had a little talk. So, we can skip all that and move on to the important question: Why did you come back?!"

The words struck home like missiles. "Mordecai... was here?!"

"Ah, don't worry, I sent him off to Aegrus for good measure. And he sure lost interest in me, once I had persuaded him there was nothing serious going on between the two of us. Back to the topic: Why are you here?!"

This next volley was at the same time reassuring and devastating. Athena was relieved that Janey had skillfully dodged the bullet that was Mordecai and cringed at the stress put on "serious". Not to mention the tone of her voice, filled with fear and caution and hurt and something else Athena couldn't quite name. And it made answering the question so incredibly difficult. Her knees started to shake. That was a first.

"Listen, I wanted to return... as soon as I could..."

"What do you need? A car? Food? Medicine? Because you came back either because you need help or because you don't have to worry about those two Vault Hunters any more."

"It's the latter. We've... made an arrangement. And of course I will always come back to you", she added quickly, letting it spill out. "I need you. Please. I didn't want any of this to happen. And a lot of shit happened in the last two weeks alone. I can't take anymore. Not on my own."

It was perfectly silent in the garage. Janey took a deep breath, relaxing slightly, but her voice quivered, when she spoke again: "Then why did you try in the first place? Bailing out like that. Why didn't you trust me on that matter? We came down here together, remember?"

"Yes... and it means more to me than anything else. But this was my fight and..."

"Athena. You don't have to fight anything on your own anymore. I was right there, I would have done everything to help you. Don't tell me you didn't know that. And don't you dare tell me you wanted to keep me safe, this is Pandora and, ah, do you remember that huge, rock monstrosity we took on together? So please, why didn't you trust me? Why did you just run off, without even leaving a frigging note? And why the hell didn't you bring up your two tails before?! Sasha and Vaughn remembered them pretty vividly, when I asked them."

"I was scared", Athena started to explain. Defending herself. But words had never been her weapon of choice and it was so hard to ignore the look of utter hurt in Janeys eyes. "Not of the marriage or anything, I was honestly scared of Brick and Mordecai. Please, you've got to believe me... They were the very first successful Vault Hunters, you've probably heard stories about them... The Slab King and the winner of Moxxi's Underdome... And under no circumstances did I want them to find you... or... let them find out... how much you mean to me..."

"Yeah, but: Why. Did. You. Never. Tell. Me?" Brown eyes full of anguish, staring her down.

It would have been easy, so easy, to just burst into tears right then and there, but Athena managed to go on. "I thought it was over... I thought they had finally lost my trail... Should have known better after Rhys of all people managed to track me down..."

"And are there any other things you haven't told me yet? For starters, you originally tried to swipe the Felix-Job under the rug, didn't you? Are there any more jobs you wouldn't want me to know about?!"

"No! I haven't done a bounty since Elpis! I want to live a peaceful life, I... Look, go to Scapelli, he keeps a track record of every run I ever did for him, go check... You already did, didn't you?"

Janey nodded, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "So let me get this straight: After bandits and critters, Atlas, Dahl and Hyperion, after two goddamn Vault Monsters you were so scared of two men and a bird that you didn't even dare to tell me and opted to run away? That's it?"

Now it was Athena's turn to nod, silently.

There was an incredible long pause. "I... I just don't get it. I was right there. I would have done anything in my power to help you. We're engaged, remember? I know you, I know exactly why you reacted the way you did. But can I have a little trust? At least I?" Janey sounded helpless, disenchanted.

There was a sinking, horrible feeling in Athena's stomach and it was impossible to hold the tears back. "I trust you Janey. There's no one I ever trusted more. It's just... These guys were practically knocking on our door, I panicked, I went into autopilot... I failed you, plain and square."

When Janey spoke again, her voice was soft. "You didn't fail me. You came back, all limbs still attached and no blood on your clothes. And that's all that matters. I've been worried beyond belief..." And she made the last few steps and hugged Athena.

Feeling the warmth of the other woman pressing against her, the block of ice cold fear in Athena's chest melted in a heartbeat and started to flow out. She buried her face in Janey's shoulder, clumsily wrapping her arms around her and letting the tears of relief and shame fall freely. It took her a moment to realize Janey was crying as well.

"You have a strange way of conveying worry", Athena muttered, once the sobs had subsided a bit.

"And you have a very strange way of conveying trust", Janey replied and lightly kissed the top of Athena's head.

For a moment they just stood there, holding each other close, reassuring each other.

Then of course a masked man walked into the garage, naked from the waist up, waving a bloody crowbar. "Oh looky here, two cuddling, weeping love-birdies! I wonder, will they lay eggs if we hit them hard enough? Well, the proof is in the pudding! Meat pudding! With eggs!" Upon which he attacked.

Athena withdrew from the embrace and sent Aspis flying in one smooth movement. The heavy shield hit the psycho under the chin, killing him on impact. He slumped to the ground, the crowbar clattered under a work bench. Athena caught her shield easily and turned back to Janey, but her girlfriend had retreated a bit and grinned.

"Time to close the shop, isn't it? Don't think we should risk anyone else seeing us like this", she said, her voice still a bit shaky, but she showed a teasing smile nonetheless. "Look at us. All tear stained. Not what they'd expect from Pandora's Great Gladiator..."

"...and Elpis' Greatest Kraggon-slayer", Athena finished and smiled, genuinely and gratefully. How, how could she ever have believed that Janey, sweet, kind, forgiving Janey, would turn her away? And still she felt the need to hold her and thank her over and over, with all her heart, for being there, for forgiving her so easily, for giving her life any kind of sense...

Janey gathered up her pistol as well as a remote for the shutters (and most probably the spring guns), slipped out of her vest with the Flying Skag Logo on the back, pushed some buttons on a control panel and the lights went out. "All good, let's go."

"What about the dead guy?"

"Organic waste disposal isn't due until Friday", Janey replied, shrugging, while they walked back out on the street. Behind them the shutters started to close.

"Thank you", Athena muttered, when they stroke for home. "For holding out for me."

Janey chuckled, before she leaned in close and kissed Athena on the cheek. "With pleasure, my dear lady. And thank you for coming back unharmed." A brief pause, then: "But don't you ever run off like that again."

"Promise", Athena replied. That anger was justified and would probably linger a while, but it wasn't threatening to destroy anything. She reached down carefully and held Janeys hand, warm and calloused, her fingers giving a gentle squeeze.

Sure, there were Lilith and her Raiders, a mysterious Alien, oncoming war and Pandora in general. But right now Athena was just happy to exist and be home again. Home. Walking next to her girlfriend. Holding her hand. Knowing she would never turn her away. What else to wish for?