A hello/good-bye kiss that is given without thinking - where neither person thinks twice about it.
Anemone stared somehow through her watering eyes and blurring vision, her gun in hand.
She clenched her hand on it.
She'd done this so many times before, all just as hard as the other, so why was this feeling even harder?
You know why. Her mind reminded her.
She knew, she knew well that the person writhing before her was more special than all of her older comrades.
At least, for her.
Number 21 trembled, struggling to even sit to look at her, her eyes the reddest Anemone had ever seen on an infected android, and yet, something of hers was still there.
As she took unsteady steps towards the dying Scanner, her only thought was…
Let her know.
Before it was too late, before her life will end.
And she would end it.
Anemone took Number 21's cheek, helping her look at her face.
Even now, somehow she still had the strength to smile.
When she moved to close the distance, it seemed that the Scanner already knew what she meant to do, and it almost seemed she had wanted to do the same.
But she couldn't control her body enough to do that alone, or to tell her.
Anemone didn't mind, as she left a tender kiss on Number 21's lips, let her have this last gift, before she'll go in peace.
It's a bittersweet goodbye, but…
"Thank… you…" the Scanner has the willpower to whisper these two words when the kiss ends.
Anemone wishes she could give so many more, everything else be damned, and be damned even if she herself would get infected too.
She hadn't thought about it, and if it happened then fate would bring them together again sooner than expected.
Perhaps unconsciously it was what she wanted.
As she pointed the gun at Number 21's head, though weak, again, she still smiled.
Until Anemone fired that shot that would take her life.
But she had no regrets in letting her know that she'd been loved until the very end.