This and That

"I Will Try to Fix You"

I spat at the ground with all the bitterness of a hundred lemons, struggling to stand amidst the wreckage. A painful protest erupted from my arm, travelling up my throat and out my mouth, as I realized I'd broken my right wrist. With a single glance, I assessed the damage and noticed the screen of my tiny watch: seven minutes.

I could also sense something quite not okay about my chest and my foot. Wobbling on my one good leg, I used every leftover ounce of strength to lift my head, putting all my anguish into a single gaze.

"It had to be you, eh? They couldn't have," I choked out the words around a lungful of metallic crimson, "sent a lackier lackey?"

That cruel smile--had there ever been a sunset more breathtaking? "Ah, but we would not do you such a heavy dishonor. A personage of your stature and ranking surely obliges The Team to send you their finest." A practiced flick of his wrist sent me vaulting into a pile of the violet rocks, eliciting a string of differently-pitched cracks. I screeched into the apathetic summer air. Each time I attempted anything towards standing up, every square inch of my body shouted a perfectly logical reason not to.

But he did not realize, indeed could not be allowed to realize, the gravity of this scene. The way it must play out. The ultimate result. The times I had already witnessed it beginning to end before participating. And if he unraveled even an infinitesimally minute detail of the context, he would know and feel too much to let history--or perhaps, fate--run its course. Another glance at my watch: five minutes.

At last I pulled together enough strength for my one good leg to support me. I could not stand completely straight as the gashes and other wounds in my back would not allow it. Slowly making my way back towards the man, I drew out my last hidden dagger, prepared to make a show of a stab attempt.

I could at least make the pretense slightly believable.

Of course, my foe anticipated my move, as I knew he would, and thrust the small weapon from my hand with the edge of his saber. With such incredible reflexes, I did not need to fake a look of complete shock at his speed. For one terrible moment, my position forced me to face his nicely highlighted jade eyes. Suddenly, my physical pains ceased screaming for my attention. Or had they simply been shouted down by a greater, infinitely more agonizing torment?

My mental clock ticked off the seconds. Four minutes left.

Although I expected it, an unnecessarily rough kick aimed at my gut had me rolling back across the rocky soil, one fractured hand clutched to the weakened muscles. I stopped face down, my burning cheek resting against a blazing rock. Screwing my eyes shut, I envisioned the next step in the process, forcing myself to call up a picture of that clock counting down till freedom. Success. An end.

A boot to the chest shoved my battered body back to the ground. More blood sputtered from my parted lips, a punctured lung quickly filling with blood. And even the sun could not keep me from looking up into his anger-hardened face, a face still lingeringly familiar in its nearly undetectable sorrow. Ah yes. This, this is why. This is my reason, the only one I'd ever need. No matter how well I've memorized the ending, it will always be worth it. And surely, only two minutes remained?

"You stupid, naïve, woman. After all this time? You still believed you could do something impactful, make a dent in the titanium world I had created?" He leaned in closer, the sneer written all over his visage. The distance closed between me, those achingly marvelous eyes, and my last second. "Have you learned nothing?"

Oh, I have indeed. Perhaps a little too much for my own good. Perhaps I am now all too aware of my remaining minute.

I managed to cough out a waterfall of red in exchange for a couple invigorating breaths. I tasted one carefully; yes, I might miss this. "Not every planet-shifting action stands so blindingly obvious, old friend. It may be I have done more shifting than you realized." I allowed myself a small smile, but even that slight twitch of muscle resulted in bolts of pain. For half a terrible moment, I foolishly contemplated using my last stores of energy to reach up and touch him a last time. No, no that would not do. Certainly it would abruptly end my efforts and call my preceding actions vain. A few seconds more, and It would stop.

They told me I'd linger long enough to see the shock, the anguished flood of knowledge, the tardy understanding. But I had never fully readied myself to handle the look on his face. Truly, every physical blow to my body added together might not compare to the emotion triggered by his face.

It happened suddenly, too fast for my inward clock to track: I smiled in spite of myself, breathed once more, and let every muscle relax into blissful, painless black. And through the eyes of a dead woman, I got to watch it all. I saw the wrath and fury and enraged bitterness leave through the back door just as the truth walked in. Eyes stretched in shock, he coughed out a string of imperceptible words. And to my endless delight and grief, he pulled my mangled and bloodied body to his own chest, testing the fortitude of the few unbroken bones. His eyes opened and closed and opened and closed and opened even wider in astonishment at what had taken place, at what I had accomplished, at the fact that, in the end, I had been right. The salty drops sprung to life at the corners of his eyelids, sliding down his dirt-caked cheeks in rivers, and at last mingling with my own crimson tide. He clutched me tighter still, as if there stood any chance I might up and walk away. In the face of my impossible actions, I suppose no hope seemed too staggering to him.

"Stupid, naïve woman," he sobbed into my torn shirt. "Your last idiotic decision, to sacrifice yourself for an irredeemable husk? I thought..." The man choked on the words crawling up his throat.

"Forgive my blindness. Please," another heaving sob and a fresh flow of tears, "please don't leave me alone with my torture."

I felt a slight tug, the others dragging on my tattered soul to return. I granted myself one final look at the puzzling scene, drinking in every detail. And as I stood in the In Between, slightly resisting the pull to stare at the oddity, watching this poor crumbled skeleton of a man fiercely hugging the realization of his deepest and unknown fears, a single thought floated to me on the slight desert breeze.

How ironic.

The hero dying for the villain.