"No. In fact, not only no, but hell no."

The woman across from him frowned. "Come on, Eric. At least read the file before you reject it outright."

Eric crossed his arms, returning her frown with one of his own. "You lied to me, Rosa. You said this was going to be about my pension."

"And it will be, we just haven't gotten to that part yet." She reached for the file – a large, old-fashioned manila folder that looked to be about as thick as the average dictionary, and pushed it over to him. "They've already marked the important parts for you, so it shouldn't take too long."

"I said I'm not doing this," Eric insisted.

"Eric-"

"No, don't," he snapped. "It's not that you sprang this on me out of nowhere under false pretenses. It's not that you want me to open my home to a complete stranger. It's not even that this person could apparently, assuming they were properly motivated, snap my arms clean in half like they were crispy breadsticks. No, you want to know what it is? It's the notoriety that would come with me doing this. Frankly, I don't know why you even thought of me for something like this – you know I hate the limelight."

Rosa let out a tired sigh, bringing a hand up to push the black-tinted glasses on her face up a bit. He always hated the fact that she wore those stupid things, even indoors and at night. At the very least, he could take pleasure in the fact that he'd learned her tell when it came to them – whenever he had sufficiently annoyed her, she pushed her glasses up a bit.

That was how he knew he wasn't losing the argument. He wasn't winning, either, but at least he wasn't outright losing.

"I just don't understand what the big deal is," Rosa told him. "I know you hate being the center of attention, but you'd be doing something really good for someone who desperately needs it. Isn't that worth the risk of the media hounding you? And besides, the government would do its best to keep them out of the loop."

Eric let out a small snort of contempt. "That's rich. I certainly feel a lot better now that I know the government is here to help me." He cast a glance over his shoulder at the three men wearing suits standing behind him, all of whom had pistols holstered at their hips. "No offense," he sarcastically added.

Again, Rosa let out a sigh and pushed up her glasses. She then ran a hand through her long, flowing black hair, and at that point, Eric was confident in his ability to win this particular argument. Pushing up her glasses was one thing, but now she was playing with her hair, and that could only mean he had her dead to rights.

"Look," Rosa offered, "I'm not at liberty to discuss the finer details of what's going on."

"Oh, so now there are finer details, too?"

"But all you need to know is that you're the best candidate for the job," Rosa insisted, a note of finality creeping into her tone.

Eric blinked, surprised. She was always direct with him, which he appreciated, since the last few liaisons he'd had with the Office of Veterans' Affairs had all beat around the bush with him and danced over whatever issues he'd tried to raise. None of them had lasted more than a few weeks, but she was the exception. Rosa knew how to fight fire with fire, which he appreciated, because it meant she was both very direct with him and it meant that it was that much more satisfying whenever she caved to his demands, no matter how inane they were. Of course, she tended to give demands as good as she got them, but it was still better than dealing with any of the other Affairs officers, because at least she told him to his

face whenever the government was trying to fuck him over.

Except now, apparently. Now, she seemed intent on winning him over to her side, more than she ever had before.

Eric said nothing, and Rosa took that as her cue to keep talking.

"You asked about your military pension?" she said. "Whatever you're getting paid monthly, we'll triple it."

Eric's eyes just about bugged out of his skull. He let out a low whistle. "That's a hefty chunk of change, Rosa. You sure you have the authority to push that through?"

"Believe me, I have the authority," she replied. "You're still free to walk, of course. But I know you could use the money."

Eric's gaze narrowed. "You know, you can be a real cold-hearted bitch when you want to be," he growled. "Give me that damn thing."

Rosa passed the folder over to him, and he turned to the first page she'd bookmarked. Immediately, he looked back to her in confusion.

"What the hell is this?"

"It's her file," Rosa answered.

"I know it's her file, I'm not an idiot. What I mean is, what's with all the black ink?"

"Classified," one of the suits behind him said.

"I gathered that," Eric said through gritted teeth without looking back at the man. "Rosa, be honest with me for a moment – which of the Angels would I be getting?"

Rosa hesitated. "...Thirteen."

Eric couldn't help but choke. "T-Thirteen? You're trying to give me Thirteen? As in, the Thirteen? That one?"

"Yes."

Eric immediately slammed the folder shut and went to stand up and march out of the room.

"Fuck this," he declared. "And fuck you for bringing it up to me. I'm not-"

"Eric," she called after him. "Sit down, please."

Something in her voice made him pause. All the fight seemed to have left her in the blink of an eye, replaced with resignation.

He'd known Rosa for about a year now, and yet he'd never heard her speak like that, to him or to anyone else.

Slowly, Eric turned around and walked back to his chair, his bad leg resounding against the metal floor with every other step. He took a seat across from her again, and stared at her through her sunglasses.

"Talk to me," he said. "What the hell is going on?"

Rosa simply motioned to the folder in front of her. "Read it," she told him. "It shouldn't take long to get the gist of it."

Eric hesitated for a moment, but after a few seconds, he caved. Just like she'd asked, he reached for the folder and cracked it open once more.

And just like she'd said, after just a few minutes of reading, he understood.

"Jesus Christ…" he breathed as he set the file down on the table. "I knew those girls had it rough, but this…"

"And those are just the parts that aren't covered in black ink," Rosa reminded him. "She needs you, Eric."

"Why me, though? Surely there was some other poor bastard out there just as capable as me, if not even more so."

"Your record spoke for itself," one of the other suits chimed in. "Multiple combat tours, battlefield commission when your commanding officer took a bolt to the head, fast to rise through the ranks, medals for-"

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

"I know what my fucking combat record is," Eric growled. "I don't need you to remind me of it. And that wasn't the question, anyway – my question was, why me?"

"Truthfully, you aren't the only candidate," Rosa admitted. "You're correct, there are others just like you. There were bound to be, given how many people are still left even after the war. But in the end, the brass picked you. I don't know why, but you were their first choice. That ought to be worth something, even to you."

Eric blinked, taken aback by her words. After a moment, he let out a sigh, then ran a hand through his unkempt, days-old black beard. Rosa had told him to shower and shave before coming into the branch office, and he'd chosen not to out of spite – after all, the OVA seemed intent on treating him like a crazy homeless man, so why not look the part? That was before all this, though. Suddenly, he felt completely out of his depth, in a way he hadn't felt since taking over command for the first time,

"...I've heard of this shit," he muttered. "The press calls it the Archangel program. Pretty fucking corny, if you ask me, but I suppose it fits. Is that what you want me to be, then? The

guardian Angel's guardian angel?"

"Nobody is asking you to be anything more than yourself," Rosa insisted. "All you need to do is take her into your home and help her acclimate to life outside of the battlefield. And you won't be alone in it, either – not only will I be around, but if either of you two need something, everyone in this office will drop everything in order to help out. It's the least we could do, given what the Angels did for us."

Again, Eric gave a snort of contempt. That was barely scratching the surface of what it would take to repay those girls. He didn't know much about the Angel program beyond what the government had told the public, but he was smart enough to put the pieces together – super soldiers didn't come from nowhere, after all, especially not ones that young. It didn't exactly take a genius to figure out exactly how they'd been created in the first place. Slowly, Eric turned his attention back to the file. He flipped the page, and for the first time, he saw an Angel without her armor and helmet.

She was young, of course; in her early twenties, by his estimation. It was tough to tell from her picture, given that it was a sole image of her staring straight ahead, but she appeared to have blonde hair that flowed down to the middle of her back. Her face was covered in faded scars, including a nasty-looking jagged cut that went directly through her right eye. Both her eyes were blue, but her right eye was an almost unnatural electric blue compared to her left, which was normal – he could only assume that eye was artificial in some way, though he had no idea how.

Aside from that, she looked mostly normal. She was a little short, coming in at about five-and-a-half feet tall compared to his six-foot-three, but with the Angels, looks were deceiving – he had no doubts that this girl could snap him in two with her bare hands if she so desired. And if she truly was Thirteen, like Rosa had told him, she was capable of doing so much more than that, as the Iprenians had been unfortunate enough to discover.

There was a reason why one of the terms of their permanent ceasefire was that humanity decommission most of their Angels, and no longer train up any more.

That was why she was being decommissioned, he realized – she was the Thirteen, probably the most well-known Angel of them all. Of course the Iprenians would demand that she be let go. Part of him was surprised that the Terran government had agreed to that, but then again, perhaps they were simply as weary of the war as everyone else was, to the point where she was considered a necessary sacrifice.

Still, despite all that, there was one thing missing from her file.

"What's her name?"

Rosa looked at him in surprise. "What was that?"

"Her name," Eric repeated. "Her real name. She has to have one aside from Thirteen."

Rosa hesitated for just a moment, no doubt taken aback by his sudden change in demeanor. "...Rebecca," she answered. "Her real name is Rebecca."

"And her last name?"

"Classified," the third suit cut in.

Eric let out a sharp exhale. "...Okay. Alright. Fine."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Behind him, the three men in suits bristled.

"You can't smoke in this building," one of them said.

Eric ignored him, instead popping the cigarette in his mouth and lighting it up. "You are having me open my home to a person who can and has wiped out entire Iprenian companies on her own, if the urban legends are to be believed. And honestly, just based on what little else I've heard, I wouldn't be surprised if those stories were watered down. So if it's all the same to you, I'll be smoking wherever I damn well please." He took a drag, and then exhaled, blowing a cloud of smoke out into the room. "Besides, this shit is calming me down enough that the idea doesn't sound completely terrible of all a sudden."

Rosa stared at him, surprised. "What do you mean? You'll do it?"

Eric waved her off. "Give me the fucking papers to sign, before I change my mind."

Rosa stared at him again for a moment, and then, for the first time, she did something he'd never seen her do before.

She gave him a faint smile.

"Of course," she replied, sliding over a series of forms and a pen. "I hope you don't mind wet ink signatures."

"Rolling out the red carpet…" Eric muttered as he signed on each dotted line. By the time he was done, his cigarette was nearly down to a stub, but he kept taking puffs from it regardless.

He knew better than to waste good tobacco.

With a final stroke of the pen, it was done. Eric set the pen and papers down, then leaned back in his seat, a sigh escaping him. Rosa gathered up the forms, then rose from her chair.

"I'll get these filed right away, and then we can move on to next steps," she said, barely able to conceal the excitement in her voice. "Thank you, Eric. You may go now."

Eric didn't wait for further confirmation. He rose from his seat without a word, following after her as she went, his bad foot again resounding against the metal floors.

He barely made it a few steps before one of the suits called out to him.

"Thank you," the man said. "Captain Anders."

Eric paused, his brow furrowing. Wordlessly, he pulled the cigarette stub from his mouth and dropped it on the floor, then ground it beneath his heel before continuing on his way.

He had no idea what he had just gotten himself into, but something told him he was going to regret it.

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Special thanks to my friend/co-writer, /u/Ickbard over on Reddit, without whom I would probably forget how to write entirely.