Janna sat in the living room while watching shows. The door opened and she saw Gaston walking while clearly intoxicated. It was strange to see him this way. He wasn’t the type to get drunk easily.

“Quite a party?”

“Y-yes…”

Gaston staggered forward. Janna caught and smelled him. She sat him down on the living room’s couch and held his shoulder and stomach.

“Need a bucket?”

“No.”

“This is new. What gives?”

Gaston looked at her.

“You really are pretty.”

“Excuse me?”

She smiled at his foolishness.

He turned around and held her. Putting his face on her shoulder. She hovered her hands on his back.

“I want to leave with you. Get out of this planet.”

“This again?”

“Yes. Think of me as a selfish bastard. Heartless even. Leaving our home. Leaving this planet to be in the safety of a new one that has barely turned into a civilized planet.”

“Our friends are here.”

“We aren’t leaving them. We’re just moving to Mars where it’s safer.”

“Gosh, you’re such a worrywart. Are you so concerned about me?”

“Yes.”

He buried his face on her shoulder.

“I’m not that weak, Gato.”

“Did I ever say that? You know that I don’t think that one bit.”

There was a thick pregnant silence as Janna processed her thoughts. The words she wanted to say were stopped by her own pride and stubbornness.

“You really do want to leave?”

“I do. But I don’t know if it’s right. No point in going there if you don’t come.”

“Have you thought about whether I would go in the first place? Leave our friends here?”

“I did. I guess the question is just stuck in my throat. But I've done what I can and I had to ask you myself. Are you willing to leave this world?”

Janna took her hands off him. She pressed her back on the couch and stared at the ceiling.

“That’s a lot you’re asking. I mean I did think that if you do get that sponsorship and the right to leave this planet. You’d ask me this question. You now ask this while drunk.”

“I’m sane. I am reasonable right now.”

“I know.”

“I’d understand if you don’t want to leave. You have a career here and you’ll get to earn a living if you just stick to the Babaika Lions.”

“That’s not fair, Gato.”

“I’m tired.”

Gaston said.

“I’m still young yet I’m tired. All this fighting for a monster-ridden world does nothing to me. Even being an Adjutant doesn’t allow me to escape fighting battles.”

Janna listened. Gaston leaned forward while kneading his head. The show that Janna was watching kept on playing. It was in Japanese, a show about their earliest period.

“Gato, did you know that their plan is about to take place? Multiple Disruptors creating this net that they think will contain the ichor from this planet.”

“That’s optimistic.”

“It’s playing with fire. Why do you think that I’m watching a show instead of being busy?”

She adjusts her mechanical eye and places her medical eyepatch on top of it. She tugged on her coat and leaned forward.

“Do you think it will fail?”

“Brother Reginald said that he’s moving his family to a secure location. I think he himself knows something. He has gone off the grid ever since he knew something.”

“Knew what?”

“This.”

Janna shared a clip to Gaston’s secured channel. In the channel was a video clip of the plans, the people, and the structure of the Disruptor net that they were going to place around the globe through the use of dropping them and deploying them through the construction drones that will be dropped alongside them.

“Why are you showing me this?”

“We work for a living, Gato. We work to feed ourselves. You and I have always been afraid to starve. But before we became such awful adults, we were so reckless and that recklessness led to that beautiful accident. Heh, I bought so many things. Even put down a loan for that place in Wengen. It’s still there. But I don’t think I can live in that place with your current attitude.”

“I heard that you got a mortgage. Were you planning to?”

Gaston sobered up. There was a mist that came out of his pores, expelling the alcohol he had drunk.

“I was planning to. Just me and my family together in a single-family house in a quiet village protected and secured. It was a goal. We’ve been fighting so hard. Lost our family to these monsters.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you’re not the only one who wanted to, Gaston. You’re a silly man who thinks he’s the only one who plans and thinks for this. Are you mad?”

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“I was mad.”

“Hild wasn’t against it. And she has her charms, you know? And when you weren’t around, she was my light. She helped a lot in keeping the monsters from the Golden Gate. I was weak.”

“You already paid me back with that stunt you two did.”

“Please, don’t lie, telling me that you didn’t enjoy it.”

“That was not the point, Janna. You tried to make it even. It’s why I had to go on my own way here. Have some time away from each other to think.”

Janna nodded slowly.

“And yet here you are, hoping that I’d go with you. Somewhere where the scary monsters won’t reach us. You think that there is a paradise somewhere out there. There isn’t. Life goes on and in the end we’ll find ourselves back home.”

Gaston groaned. He knows. But the stubborn part of him wanted to believe that once out there. He wouldn’t have to worry about the problems. It was an age where monsters and super men and women were fighting in the streets.

The world had changed.

Whether it was for the best or worst.

He didn’t know.

But to him it was clear that it would be years before Earth could become peaceful again. The world ended and a few years was all it took for the world to rise even with the appearance of monsters.

Gaston knew that it wasn’t that he was afraid.

Fighting monsters and beating them down was something he’d back down from.

There must be more to their life than fighting.

Even the safe job that he had been hoping for was still full of conflict. Monsters and Monsters in Man’s skin were around. Janna was right that Mars itself was not the Paradise he was hoping for as well.

Gaston had done his research. Obtained information from people he knew and understood that Mars was full of power-hungry sons of bitches that hoped to be kings and queens on another planet. To create a business dynasty that would not suffer the same mistake they made.

It was far from the ideal paradise that he wanted. A place free from monsters and free from the troubles of the earth-life.

There was no such thing in the universe as long as they were breathing.

It was simply running away to a place where it might take a long time for the monsters to reach them.

He had condemned a man who wanted to help.

Made a sinner of him.

And through condemning that man that he was now able to reach his dream.

Gaston didn’t regret a damn thing about that deal. He’d do it again if offered and it would be nothing more than another awful thought that would remain in his head.

Janna watched him fight himself in the head. Whether he should just leave that thought for later or run away now. She didn’t know what had happened to him in the Golden Gate that truly changed him.

But she knew that her Gaston wouldn’t be like this if he wasn’t thinking about her family. She had to work hard to make sure that he wouldn’t look at her as if she’s his sister.

In a way, what she wanted had happened. Not that they were in their ideal home. But it was still a home that they have. For a moment she thought of an image she dreamt about. A little kid running around, with the parents worrying in the corner.

It was a good image of what she wanted.

She had run away as well.

Burying herself with work and keeping her thoughts from being still. She admits that she pushed it away. All that love for fighting was nothing more than her way of venting her worries.

Janna became still as she looked at the worry in Gaston’s eyes. She wondered what he would do. And that thought scared her. It was a dilemma for both of them.

The Gaston that always remained calm in everything. From childhood, she had looked at him with a belief that none could chip that mask of his. That cool, composed, and scary look that was always on his face.

And yet here she was again looking at that defenseless and vulnerable face. This was hers only. She cherished the thought despite feeling awful for doing so.

She gives, and takes.

He does as well.

She found herself unable to speak as she thought of it. She sat silently without a word.

There was no accident that would motivate them to change. No sudden disaster that would allow them to get over their problems for the sake of something greater than that problem.

It does not work like that.

The world wasn’t so convenient that it could happen. Even accidents such as the cult rising and the deed he had done for the Consortium was nothing more than a few cases.

Facing your own demons and overcoming them.

Putting them down and hoping that they’d go away.

You run or you fight them head on.

But there are demons in our head that can’t be killed.

They scar the mind.

Sometimes they heal.

Sometimes they don’t.

Losing a potential family member.

All because of a choice they made.

Sometimes to face your demons you just have to sit down and talk about them.

And this was their demon.

Working for money.

Doing jobs for the Earthside Consortium.

A purpose must be there for them to keep on working.

They had the luxury to run away from them.

Not many could have that.

When the world ended, something like a happy end was a luxury that only those who fought and worked hard enough for it could achieve.

To reject that piece of paradise was hard.

The show that Janna was watching showed an image of a samurai cutting a red rope and parting with his family.

“I shall not fight.”

The words were translated through their AR-module’s translating software. They turned their eyes to the television and watched the samurai on the screen traveling roads and making his way through the various towns and villages.

Janna thought of an old promise.

“Hey, remember when you said that we’d travel the world? It never happened because the world ended.”

“I did. It was in Santa Eulàlia that I said that. I did promise that, didn’t I?”

Janna recalled her hand being held. Hiding in that church’s bell tower, hoping that the monsters would go away. Praying that their life would return and they’d be able to laugh and play.

That time never returned.

Janna doubts that it would.

“Oh, I made that promise, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did. Are you really going to leave without fulfilling it?”

Gaston stared at her as if knowing her intentions.

A compromise that Janna was willing to make.

But it was enough to light a fire in Gaston.

To give him enough excuse to see her way instead.

“Then we’ll leave tomorrow.”

“Going to quit?”

“They would still keep us as associates. Affiliate members of their Company. Let’s leave. Not that they need anything from us. Doubt they’d ask for favors this time.”

Janna folded her arms and demanded with a grin.

“Gaston Hardy, are you suggesting that we run away?”

“I am.”

Leaving with their luggage in the quiet of the night.

The house that they rented became empty.

With only a short notice from both of them about their paid leave.