Snippet #2254542

Anna jokingly flexed her muscles, satisfied with her small victory. There wasn't always a need for fights to be long winded and over the top. Most of the time, stuff like that wasn't needed. "Phew, short but good." She said, rubbing her forehead with one hand. She looked him over, and he didn't seem to have gotten injured, his pride seemed all right too. She glanced around them, making sure that they hadn't left bits and pieces and such all over.

"By the way, I don't think I ever got around to thanking you. You had my back out in the field, and I should have stayed back when you pulled me." She said, placing her hands on her hips, making her seem wider than usual, somehow. "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't mind saving my ass once or twice more!" She chuckled a little, trying to postpone the awkwardness that probably would ensue.

"I," She started, looking to the door. "I'll go take a shower and have some wind down time, you come find me if you need me, okay?" She waved as she moved out through the doors, heading toward the medical wing once more. The trip was very uneventful, and when she arrived there, the remaining bandages on her face were removed, and she was told it wasn't going to get much better than that. She took a shower, a quick one, and when she was done, she took a few minutes to look at herself in the mirror. Her body was scarred, mainly the arms and torso. She thought the herself that she looked terribly mundane, as she stood there naked. Once, she had believed that her pretty face had made her more interesting. She'd realised that it probably didn't.

She ran her fingers down her cheeks, feeling the difference. One side was smooth, soft, it gave an impression of youth. The other was rippled, hundreds of tiny valleys and mountains crossing between each other. There was not much to note about the eye. It wasn't coming back. "Who can ignore me now?" she asked herself, daring a smile at her reflection.

Minutes later she left the medical wing again, eyepatch on, hair braided and hanging down her back. She had no destination, but instead just glanced out the windows as she passed them. Until she was stopped by a robot, which didn't surprise or mystify her at all. It had become routine.

"Ackabecker awaits you in the library." It simply said, before wheeling off. Perhaps this was one of those lesser kind machines, she wondered, as she walked to the library. Best not keep folks waiting. When she got there, it didn't take long to find him, almost buried in a book.

"Theo." She said, trying for his attention.

---

She smiled at him, faintly. "Helen haunts me. When I return to Scotland, she's there. She's just looking at me. She hangs on my shoulders, she grabs my ankles so I can't walk. I can't get her away."

It wasn't that Callen didn't know how to get rid of a ghost, in fact it was more difficult than just that. "Sasia's parents have known me always. They knew I wasn't a bad kid. Of course everything got reported to the police and all that, but they never told her that I was the one driving that car. They made me promise that whenever I could, I would be by her side. I would teach her about life, and be her friend. I'd call during storms, I'd take her to the cinema, I'd be her role-model. But I can never tell her that I'm the one who hurt her. That's my punishment. I must look at her and smile, I must laugh, and I must be happy. No matter how much it tears me up inside, no matter how hard the ghost pulls at me."

She looked up at the sky, blinking away the steadily oncoming tears. "And she looks up to me. And she smiles when I visit. She asks me about my life. She tries to hold my hand. And I can never ever confess, because it's not about me. I must, unselfishly, be her pillar."

She paused, trying to tie everything down to a point that he could understand. "She would be disappointed in me if I begun killing left and right. For all I know, they could have families too. Friends. Lovers. I'm not cut out for a life like this, I'm one of those people who want to save everybody. I'll be glad to tinker with cars and keyholes, make gadgets and all that, but the things you do are not for me. And that's final."