Ain't War Hell?
By: Maximillian von Fischgeist 

Chapter Fifteen
Gratitude

    Scarlett gazed silently at Lowlight, slumped over a table in the empty rec-room, his head resting on his arms. It was odd to see him asleep. She'd had the silly notion that he didn't sleep. Certainly not at night, anyway, which was the only time there was any hint that he was indeed alive. The nearly empty bottle (once a fifth, now more like a tenth of a fifth) of bourbon on the table beside him explained why he was asleep now. An unhealthy method of wooing the sandman, to be sure.

    She sat down in the chair opposite him and watched him sleep. He hadn't been asleep long, as indicated by the not quite melted ice left in the not quite empty glass by the bottle. What time was it? She checked her watch. 03:28.

    Scarlett had been released from the hospital two days before, but was still barred from active duty. She spent a good deal of her time attempting to get back in shape and was annoyed at the realization that her usual regimen was a bit beyond her recovering body to handle. She was about four hours past tired at the moment, but knew that Lowlight might be found at this time of night. And here he was. Asleep.

    She yawned, making not much noise, and wondered if it was the small sound that caused Lowlight to stir presently. His shoulder twitched. His hand unfurled from a closed position and then splayed open quickly and tensed, then clenched into a tight fist. His head jerked up and his eyes flickered open. "He's dead," he murmured. He noticed her and blinked a few times as he worked to sit up.

    Lowlight pushed out a harsh breath, as if to clear his lungs of bad air. "Scarlett," he acknowledged in a quiet, hoarse voice.

    "Who's dead?" she asked.

    He ran a hand through his mussed waves of hair. "Hmm?"

    "You said 'he's dead.' Who is?"

    He shook his head. "Dunno. Musta been dreamin'." His nose whistled, and he sucked in through it to clear it out. "Time is it?"

    "About three-thirty."

    There was silence a moment. Lowlight (nose still whistling) tapped his finger on the bottle, perhaps considering finishing it off.

    "You drank all that tonight?" Scarlett asked.

    Lowlight continued to toy with the bottle, not looking up. "Time for a sermon, is it?"

    "No," she answered. "It's none of my business."

    He cleared his throat, and switched to breathing through his mouth. "Gets to be an expensive pastime," he said. Scarlett wondered if he was aiming at humor, but his groggy voice didn't offer much color. She didn't even know if he was capable of humor. "How long you been here?" he asked.

    "Not long." Some of her hair (currently not tied in its usual ponytail) crept over her shoulder and she flung it back with a toss of her head. "You didn't come to see me."

    He shrugged, still not looking up. "Didn't need to. Everyone else did."

    "But it was you I wanted to see."

    He picked up the glass and sloshed what was left of its contents around, his gaze pointed in the general direction of... nothing, really. The soft clinking of ice was the only sound that could be heard. He set the glass down and pushed it away. The bottle also.

    Finally, he locked his eyes on hers. She noted the red lightning crackling from the pink-tinged whites, groping for the pale blue irises. For once, his eyes looked curiously lifelike. Indeed, though he'd had a lot to drink, he didn't seem to be drunk. His speech, clipped as it may have been so far, was not slurred, and his distractedness could be blamed on having just awakened. But now, his gaze locked on hers, she saw that he was alert.

    "If you came to thank me, don't," he said icily.

    It was an off-putting remark, and startling, and she opened her mouth to snap back, but decided against it. She wasn't looking for an argument. "Well," she said calmly, managing a soft smile, "I did come to thank you."

    He shook his head, and looked back down at the tabletop. "I did my job. Anyone else would have done the same."

    She leaned forward. "Even if they would, which I doubt, it was you who did it. And I thank you, Lowlight. You saved my life." He didn't react. She leaned back. "There. It's said."

    He pulled a cigarette pack out of his shirt pocket and opened it. Shook it. Let it drop to the table.

    "All out?" she asked, keeping her voice calm and friendly. "Can't smoke in here anyway, you know."

    "Yeah," he breathed. His nose whistled again. He rubbed it with his knuckles. "There was nothing..." - he paused, searching for the right word - "...noble about it."

    She felt her head cock to one side, curiosity bending her body as it pleased. "Why'd you do it, then?"

    "Drink?" he asked, giving the bottle a shove so that it slid to within her reach. It came to an abrupt stop and teetered, obliging her to steady it with her hand.

    "No, thanks."

    He fell against the back of his chair and let his head fall back, his face toward the ceiling. "You're an assassin, like me."

    She nodded. "Sometimes."

    "Don't you ever feel..." His voice cracked, possibly due to his head's new position. He cleared his throat and straightened in his chair. He pointed his eyes somewhere over her shoulder. "Haven't you ever wondered if there's a way to balance out all the killing?"

    She felt for him a pang of pity. Regret like this was a sign that his days as assassin might be coming to an end. She had felt it herself, of course, knew exactly what he was talking about. Everyone felt it. But coping with it, making it impersonal, keeping it PROFESSION rather than PHILOSOPHY, was what separated the competent from the unbalanced. He had always seemed to be untouchable, impervious to this sort of dangerous speculation.

    She knew he expected an answer. "Every one of us has thought that."

    "I know what you're thinking," he said, a strange thin ghost of a smile tainting his lips. "And don't. I'm not losing it."

    She licked her lips, wondering at their dryness. Perhaps a psychological reaction to the dehydration he must feel when waking after drinking however much he felt obligated to drink every night. "When the question comes up, you have to consider it. You drink a lot. You smoke. Not exactly life-loving hobbies. As far as I know, you don't have a regular pattern of sleep.

    "Bad dreams," he mumbled. He offered no more than that.

    Scarlett continued. "I think you should step back and think about what's going on."

    "Can't. Won't." He motioned for the bottle. She reluctantly slid it back to him. He unscrewed the lid and took a swig. "How do you sleep at night?" The question might have been less unnerving if he'd been addressing her instead of the bottle in his hand.

    "I keep myself busy," she answered, knowing her solution wasn't the strongest of examples. "I'm tired at the end of the day. I sleep."

    "And then there's another day after that," he mumbled. "And another. And another." He sucked down the rest of the bottle in an appalling display of alcoholic mastery.

    "Why do you do it?" she pressed. "You could find another line of work, you know."

    Lowlight continued to play with the bottle. "Saves someone else the trouble."

    And what special curse forced you into thinking that you must sacrifice yourself to save someone else the trouble? she thought, not voicing the question to him. She might not get an answer anyway. And would she really want to hear it? "You should sleep," she offered. "You're tired."

    The ghostly smile returned and his bloodshot eyes again met hers, if only briefly. "I don't think I should stand up." Now, he was definitely aiming at humor... she thought.

    Scarlett smiled and stood up. "I'll walk you to your room." She moved to stand beside him. He pushed himself up, relying heavily on the table for support. "Put your arm around me." Her order echoed his on that fateful night, in the middle of a forest, death imminent. He had ordered her to do the same. She hadn't complied. It seemed for a moment that he would be defiant, but then, amazingly, his arm slid over her shoulders and his weight leaned into her.

    Silently, they left the rec-room and made their way to his quarters. The trip took a few minutes. Neither spoke. Scarlett wondered why he suddenly had become so willing to lean on her for support, when, a few minutes before, he had issued her an icy challenge not to thank him. Not to get near him.

    They arrived at his door at last.

    "I'm okay from here, I think," he said. They separated and he opened the door. He paused, looked at her, briefly, and then cast his eyes down again.

    She sighed. "I'll see you around, I guess." When he didn't answer, she started to move away. His hand caught her wrist and gripped it tightly.

    "I wasn't honest." He almost looked at her, but it seemed he couldn't bring himself to match his eye to hers. "It was more than I admitted." He breathed in and out a couple times. When he spoke again, it was in a rasping whisper. "Some people... deserve the life they have, were given." Suddenly, he sounded drunk. And also, strangely, sober. "When one of them..." He found the will to look her in the eye. "...one of you goes, the world, as horrible as it already is, becomes an even sadder place." He took another breath, perhaps to fuel further comment. But it never came.

    He released her wrist. His eyes still looked into hers. She felt such grief for him in that moment. She realized that she hadn't, that no one had, ever considered him... human. He was so good at what he did, always did what had to be done. Why? Stock answer: Because he doesn't feel. He's not human. He's great to have around, because he always gets the job done. But he's not friendly. Can't get along with him. Can't talk to him. He's not a man. He's a machine. He doesn't feel, and so next time we need him, we'll hit the power switch, he'll activate, do his job, go away, and everything's fine again. She felt such wretched guilt, for she too had believed that to be true. He's an assassin. He kills. Ask him to kill, and he kills. Saves me the trouble. This was the first time she'd ever glimpsed that terrible hole in him. In his soul. And he did, after all, have one. And it was in danger, terrible danger. And she'd help put it there. But wasn't that his job? Didn't he choose that for himself?

    Her eyes stung with what she realized were the beginnings of tears (tears that would not escape, she knew; she was trained too well for that). She wrapped her arms around him. She was mildly surprised to feel his arms tighten around her back. "You will always have a friend in me, Lowlight," she whispered.

    She heard his breath in her ear. He gave no answer. No acceptance, no reprimand.

    The odd embrace unraveled. She opened her eyes to see him retreat into his room. As the door closed, and he disappeared, she remembered how tired she was. She headed for her room, anticipating the comfort of a bed whose softness was worlds better than the hardness of recovery from the bite of bullet. And there was a certain relief (and, sure, some sympathy... but more relief; was that selfish?) that there was at least one person whose dreams were worse than hers.

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Continued in Part Sixteen!
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