Trinity

The Way it Was

"How far did you end up?" Quaritch asked as the two returned from their multiple-hour banshee hunt.

"Little under fifty klicks." Mansk responds as he sinks into an unoccupied couch. Ten barely walked past the Colonel, and he stopped her with a bundle of clothes.

"I was right about the clothes."

"I thought you were kidding." She takes them with a roll of her eyes.

Z-dog leads Ten to her room, and Quaritch finally feels like he can rest easy for a bit. With the clothes 'issue' taken care of, Ardmore had one less thing to bitch about.

Despite maintaining what he thought was a fairly convincing neutral demeanor, he was anxious about being in Bridgehead. He'd been anxious since Ardmore ordered them to return to outfit the banshees.

One, he didn't want humans anywhere near his banshee. The dumbfucks had no idea what they were doing, and he was already very attached to Cupcake... and the name. Regardless of his dramatics, he honestly liked the name. There was something so humorous about a Marine having anything named Cupcake.

During their nightly talks before he backed off, Ten'etirey referred to him as the Genocidal Warlord. Fitting, all things considered. And now the Warlord had a fucking banshee named Cupcake. At least it wasn't Bob. Quaritch couldn't believe Sully named his banshee Bob. At least it was amusing.

He missed their nightly talks, but after his fuckup at the hot springs, he backed off again. It was driving him crazy that every time he so much as glanced at her, he'd hear mine.

No shit.

Of course she was his; she was his wife.

Dead wife...

Not dead wife?

He settled on somehow alive wife.

He didn't just miss the talks, he missed her. The conversations about Hell's Gate were a pathetic attempt at him "trying to jog her memories." In reality, it was an excuse to just be around her. He once thought he'd never let her go, and he'd let her drag him to the darkest corners of hell as long as she was there with him.

Instead, he took her to that pit and tossed her in himself. Even if he could somehow talk his way out of the blame for her Avatar dying—he couldn't—it was his pride and anger that led them down separate paths.

As soon as he gave out the order, he knew he'd fucked up. Tenera was right; they were just kids. He didn't give a shit about the natives or the Gaia bullshit they believed in. But they were children and he ordered their death. How evil was he that the Paragon of War told him it was wrong?

At first, he didn't regret what he'd done. The old him only regretted what it caused and what it took from him. A couple days into their separation, he would have gladly backpedaled, but the damage was done. The failsafe had triggered, and the person they once knew was gone.

Four months of absolute hell. Not only watching the thing she became, but witnessing Mansk's mask grow as he drifted further and further away. Both of them stared at the woman they once loved, who looked at them as if they were nothing.

She died for nothing. That self-hatred was cleverly disguised as a cold man fueled by thoughts of revenge and spite. Determination to complete his mission. In actuality, he was a broken man desperately searching for a reason. He had to make her death mean something, because her dying for him meant nothing. Ultimately, he failed at that as well.

That's why it was so important for him to complete this mission. There had to be a better explanation for why she had to die for him. He couldn't justify her death based on her love for him; she had to hate him for what he did. Yet with her dying words, she said she still loved him. How?