A Somber Affair

"Wuh, wuh's goin' on?"

Koko smiled cheerfully as Dresden reentered the world of the living. She nodded to her Fallanassi friend and left the room without a word, pulling the door closed behind her. She was the model of unobtrusive efficiency, right up until the point where the door was promptly obliterated by the meter-thick blast door that guillotined down in its place. For once in her life, the Shard woman engaged in the sort of maniacal laughter that professionalism had always deemed inappropriate, regardless of the situation.

MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! I've got you, my pretties.

A holoprojector in the center of the table lit up, casting a massive, cackling projection of Koko's head across the room.

"Listen up, you primitive screwheads! This room is sealed. You can try to fight your way out, but this will fail. Escape can be accomplished only by meeting my demands, or rather, my demand. You two obviously have a thing for each other, and you're just as obviously being complete asshats about it. You will leave the room when I am satisfied that you have, at the very least, worked out your differences enough that you can see the truth for what it is. Am I understood?"

The fallen Whill looked puzzled for a minute.

"The fuck are you-"

Oh. Right. She didn't know that Vera the security consultant (or apparently prostitute) was actually Sinistra, Lord of Atrocity and Accounting of the Dark Tide. This was going to be interesting.

"Look, it's not like that. Vera is not a prostitute, and we didn't sleep together. What do you care, anyway?"

Dresden just sat there for a minute, dumbfounded.

"So there it is," he said, when he could bring himself to speak. "Knowing that I would have to kill you rather than let you leave, you still want to go."

His voice was flat. The former Shard was clearly in a state of shock. In his head, over and over again, played out the action of drawing a gun, pointing it at the Major's head, and pulling the trigger. The flash from the end of the barrel, the bullet traveling along in slow motion, propelled by the rapidly expanding gas released when the powder burned. Every time, it made a clear, perfect path the the bridge of her nose. In reality, such a shot would kill her instantly. The brain stem would be dead before the pain signals ever had a chance to travel from her shattered face. In this recursive hell loop, however, they were both watching. There was no pain in her eyes as the bullet struck home, only...relief. At least, at first.

As the loop went on, relief changed to anger, then to hatred, and then to open, sneering contempt.

Is that what she wanted?

"Riplian, I..."

And suddenly, something new took the place of the shock, chasing it out entirely.

"And what if I don't want to kill you? What exactly do you plan to do then? Blow your own brains out? You haven't got it in you, and we both know it."

This time, he caught the way she recoiled away from the sound of her name. There was a story there, and likely not a happy one. Dresden resolved to save it for true emergencies, as it was apparently a source of pain.

As she spoke, however, the urge to lash out, scream that name, to brandish it like a whip and flog her with it until her soul was bruised and bloody, became so powerful that it was almost a real, tangible thing. Because he knew how to solve this, how to get her back on his side. He knew how to, if not remove the barriers between them entirely, at least poke a few holes in it.

All he had to do was give up on dying.

It wasn't fair.

Hadn't he sacrificed enough? Diva had a piece of his soul, for fuck's sake. Was it too much to ask for a bit of closure? A million lifetimes of pain and suffering, the guilt of sending all those brave men and women off to die, the all consuming loneliness that had been a part of him for so long...there was finally an end in sight.

But he didn't want to face it alone. He had friends now, of course. Family, even, if one could count an adopted Shard and a Sith drinking buddy as family. But the desire to sink into someone else, to be as much a part of them as they are of you, was nearly overwhelming. He wanted that. He needed that. But here sat his last best hope, informing him that to accept the end was to deny her.

And you know what? He wanted to hate her for it. But, well, he couldn't. Whatever it was that the fallen Whill felt for the Major, it did not tolerate the presence of hatred, not where she was concerned.

In the end, there was only one thing he could do, one thing he could say, and it cost him nearly everything he had to say it.

"What...what would you say if I told you I'm willing to try to live? Not for my own sake, but for..."

Dresden swallowed hard, trying to force down the lump in his throat.

"No, not for them. Not for all of them, at any rate. Just for you."

For better or worse, the former Shard, immortal Whill turned human, had set his course. There was no turning back now. There was no room for self pity. Either he was fully committed or not at all.

Show her. Right.

Spurred on by the Major's own somewhat shocking loss of control, Dresden reacted quickly, instinctively. He summoned the pistol from the Major's side in a flash, as well as a glass from a table. He held his wrist over the glass, put the pistol against it, and pulled the trigger. The noise was deafening in the small room, and it was only the best of luck that prevented the projectile from bouncing around the room. The wound on his wrist healed almost instantly, but not before spraying copious amounts of blood into the glass. Face pale, drawn tight from the residual pain, the fallen Whill slid the glass across the table.

"That should give you something to work with. If there's a way to fix this, you'll find it."

Now that the hard part was over with, Dresden allow himself to slump back in the chair for a few seconds so Major could tend to his wrist. He wasn't a fool; he knew giving her a sample of his DNA for any purpose was quite dangerous. There was every possibility that she would find a way to either slow or halt the energetic decay his body would undergo once it stopped its constant regeneration. There were also countless other things she could do with it. He just hoped he didn't come home one day to find she had bioengineered a child or something.

With its role fulfilled, the gun went back up on the table. Dresden looked up at the Major, trying to find something he could do that would convey some sort of affection without startling the shit out of her. The best he could come up with was to sort of pat her arm gently as he spoke.

"Whatever you have to say, say it. I doubt Koko will let us out of here otherwise."

The intention had not been to leave the wound open, and in fact, Dresden thought it had already closed. He knew he could suppress the regenerative effects for short periods of time, but he had never done it without consciously trying. Slowly, he willed the wound closed, as if in response to the Major's inexpert ministrations.

She was definitely acting...odd. First laughing (truly a sight to behold,) then admitting she was wrong (sans accent, no less,) followed by tending to the ugly tear across his wrist and then saying sorry, and to top it all off, a short spiel about fashion and cowboys. This was new ground, alright. To his untrained eye, it seemed like she was as much out of her depth as he was, possibly more so. This was the first time since they had met that he didn't feel like he was sitting under a microscope, waiting to be dissected. If he didn't know better- no, he was almost sure of it. She was trying to make small talk.

There was nothing to do but dive in. He rose from the chair, opting to sit on the edge of the table instead. He was told that, in situations like this, remaining seated in a chair while the other stood created a subtle sense of disparity in the conversation, especially when dealing with both beings' towering heights. The fallen Whill was still a bit too unsteady on his feet to stand for extended periods of time, but by sitting on the table's edge, his body position should suggest both equality and informality.

"Eh, I'll miss the coat, but a new look couldn't hurt, I guess. New body, new jacket. As long as I don't have to give up my Colt, we'll roll with it."

Meanwhile, Koko watched the whole thing unfold from a security booth not far away. The news that Eralam was dying came as a shock, but in retrospect, they hadn't really had a chance to talk since he got back. She supposed he planned to tell her in private. She was somewhat pleased to hear that he was willing to find a cure for whatever condition would claim his life, but more than a little alarmed that, until Chisame had pressed, he had been content to sit back and die. Surely he didn't mean to just abandon her and everyone else.

As the conversation went on, both parties seemed to be relaxing a bit. Koko almost considered unlocking the door, but something told her it wasn't quite time. Not yet.