Brothers in Arms

It's damn near impossible to control my breath in a situation like this: slumped next to a wall, guts squishing wetly out from between my fingers, the lower half of me in white-hot agony.  Blood runs in thick, warm gushes over my hand, and I have to keep checking to make sure it's just blood and not my intestines escaping.  My fall is marked by a crimson flower leading from a spray roughly five feet up the wall, the stem diving straight down to a hidden point behind my back.  I figure I look pretty damn heroic like this (if we ignore the bit of gore trying to find its way into my lap), and can't hold back a smile.

My girlfriend, bless her cruel, warm heart, is trying to fix the situation so hard that she's mouthing her thoughts as she tries to find a place to start.  Funny... a few hours ago, she was doing a damned fine job of trying to help them escape.  The sensation of her hands roaming my torso bring my thoughts to a strange conclusion.  Dying is damned hilarious, dying while Katherine is trying to save me is even more hilarious, but I also have to admit I'd rather those hands were exploring in a slightly less bloody scenario.

Only slightly.  This is my Kathe we're talking about.

Her eyes widen, meeting mine.  I watch her irises dilate, then constrict, each individual line and fleck of deep green and honey as clear and beautiful as I've ever seen them.  I realize as the cool rush of her attempts to heal the damage trickle through the inferno raging in my abdomen that I can smell her.  The faint scent of roses, laid in layers with leather, frankincense, and smoke waft on the breeze, and I definitely prefer the smell of her to the smell of my blood.  Her lips move, and I'm entranced by the quick movements, the shape of her lips, the flashes of ivory as she enunciates something, her eyebrow tilting in that familiar question, and her lips again, mouthing a word that jerks me out of my reverie and back into this mess I'm in.  "Gerald?"

I stare at her a moment longer, then grin.  She's really too serious about this whole thing.  "Do you smell onions, Kathe?"

"What?"  She sits back, her eyebrows furrowing.  "Oh.  Oh dammit, you slow-brained vagrant excuse for cow fuel, stop joking right now and tell me what --"

"Darlin'," I drawl, "you ain't patching this up."

"But..."  She sighs, and her face loses some of its tension.  "Damn.  Oh damn, this isn't..."  I catch the extremely rare sight of tears forming in her eyes, and she swipes them so hard I think for one bright moment that the daft girl has actually punched herself.  She uncurls from her crouch to sit next to me.  I cough a little, the blood in my lungs starting to tickle, and she carefully tucks back a stray bit of me that slid past my thumb.  "Gerald, we can't die.  This is stupid.  Quit it."

I try to shrug, but have to settle for a small twitch of the shoulders.  Katherine has been around me long enough though, all my life in fact, and she recognizes the ghost of the gesture for what it is.  "So we don't die for good.  It's still..."  My voice trails off as I try to piece together the rest of my thought before it vanishes into the haze forming in my head.  "It's still... something."  I cough again, and this time there's a soft rattling that I've heard far too many times from my brothers in arms.  Never really thought I'd hear it from myself.  I look over at Katherine.  She's staring at me, this time with this look of understanding and shared misery.  It hits me then, really hits me, that I'm dying.  Not only am I dying, I'm dying all over Katherine, and I had better do a damned good job of dying because if I don't, my father will make sure I die his way for making her look that sad on my behalf.

Hell, I'd do the same thing in his place.  After all, it's Katherine, and crazy as she may be...

I must have drifted again.  She's staring out at the horizon, the darker of her Arms in her hands.  She's Aiming at something, although someone less accustomed to Kathe's habits would mistake the barrel being pointed about two feet in front of her and held in such a loose grip for a sign of relaxation.  I follow the direction of her Aim, but I don't catch any sign of the bastards who took us down.  Damn them, anyway.  Like their shitty little city was worth... I mean, it's not like we did that much damage to it.  Hell, I figure we improved the place by demolishing chunks of it.

"Were we followed?"

"Mmmmh."  She shrugs with one arm, her gaze moving a few degrees to the left, giving the impression of letting her attention wander.  It seems to work; a scant moment later, Gevurah's barrel snaps up, the sharp CRACK of her report echoing off the rubble around us.  I can barely make out the minuscule figure that ducks with the motion, but the mental roar of DAMMIT KHATARINA that nearly slams my head into the wall does a fine job of identifying my father as the target.

I sneak a quick glace.  Her default expression is back: hard, sharp, and five seconds from gut-ripping or humor.   Good luck discerning the difference.  I'm glad to see it back.  It's the sign of a far more peaceful death than the one I feared.  Her eyes are soft, though, and alert and aware in a way that only seems to appear for my dad.

Partner or no, she really didn't need to be looking at him that... tenderly.  She should only look at me that way. I allow myself the luxury of thinking bastard at him.  After all, what's he going to do, kill me?  

I blink, and he's crouching in front of me, his face absolutely unreadable.  "I could.  I should."

I suppose I might have peed myself, but there's enough fluid leaking from me right now that it's impossible to tell for certain.

His regard turns quickly to my injuries, and there's that odd shift in the air as our roles change, and it is The Boss in front of me, not my dad.  That's just fine with me.  I'd rather die in front of the Judge than the Dad.  He gently pulls my hands away from my torso for a better look.  There's a curious sliding sensation, and I close my eyes against the choking wave of nausea and dizziness.  There's just nothing right about the sensation of your insides spilling out like so much pasta out of a bowl.

"I see why you were just sitting there," he says quietly to Katherine.  She frowns.

"You thought I was just playing catch-up?"

The Judge doesn't answer her.  Instead, he gently leans me forward, inspecting the ruined mess of my back.  The wave of dizziness hits again, and he senses this, leaning with me somehow, bracing me.  

Only now does it occur to me that I'm not feeling any pain.  "When did..."  My voice trails off.  The haze is back, stronger now.  "Pain, I mean.  It's..."  I shake my head, trying to find the words.  Big mistake.

"Easy now, son," the Judge says, one hand on my shoulder, the other in front of my ribs.  There's the sliding sensation again, in reverse this time, and this time I gag.  Nothing comes out, of course, save for a few bubbles of blood that I feel pop.  One of them must have been pretty big, judging from the new splatters on my father's sleeve.  

I have enough time to notice that I'm at least intact on the surface when the black hits, and there's another, fuller sliding sensation, and then nothing but the thought that I forgot to say goodbye.

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