_ _ _Hiiro

I woke up strapped to a hospital bed, drugged to the point where dreams and reality were near indistinguishable. I was alive. Bim was gone. The little compass in my heart always pointing to her was a raw gaping wound, directionless agony that no amount of time would ever heal. I returned to my dreams.

Bim was still with me in my dreams. I remember us speaking but whenever I awoke the details escaped me. She wasn't gone gone, she was just out of reach for a time. Would that I could have slept forever, to live out my final days in unending slumber with her but sooner or later, I had to wake up and keep living.

I was in a small room tailored with my unique needs in mind— which was to say everything except the bed was non-flammable and there were a dozen automated fire extinguishers pointed at me. I rattled my restraints, the clatter of chains on pipes echoing through the metal halls. Princess came first, cut up, bruised and covered in bloody scabs in stark contrast to her inhumanly pale skin. She took a long hard look at me with her strange, overlarge purple eyes. Was that pity I saw? Sympathy?

"Knock that off and shut up for a second. If you're up for a talk, I'll get the old men."

I nodded and she took off. I could hear her boots clomping down the halls, the quite rumbling hum of engines. I was on a ship. I halfway recalled the mercs had a hospital ship but the name escaped me. Princess returned with the old men. Leeroy and Gerald. I had the oddest sense of déjà vu, recalling the first time I'd woken up in their care all those months ago. On instinct I reached for the killing flames—half expecting them to have abandoned me with Bim's death—and supernatural warmth surged inside of my bones.

"What's the bill this time?" I asked. "A few more months of indentured servitude? Or is this the part were you dissect my brain for science?"

"Not this time, Firebug." Leeroy answered. "We're square."

That set me back. Gerald cautiously undid my restraints, much like a nervous trapper would free a dangerous predator. I still hadn't forgot his attempt to kill me. I should have called him out, should have demanded my pound of flesh, yet I held my peace and allowed him to conclude examining me. In short, my body and soul were still wasted away but otherwise mending. I was stick thin, my hands were gaunt knots of muscle and bone, and inside I felt an irritably peculiar gnawing dryness. I was worn and haggard but otherwise healthy and whole.

Above all else, I was miserably lonely. A world without Bim was like a world without color.

"So… What does that mean?" I asked, trying to put the pieces together for myself and largely failing.

"It means we're square." Leeroy repeated. "You don't owe us anything and we've got your share of the job set aside for you— minus some expenses."

I blinked some more. I knew the words they were using, but I couldn't make sense of them.

"It means you can do what you want but we're done." Princess snapped irritably. "We can drop you off here or give you a ride to the next star down the chain. We'll go our way, you go yours."

"I don't have anywhere to go…" I said. "Could I- No that's stupid. I don't want to stay on with you."

"We wouldn't take you, even if you did." Leeroy said after giving Princess a warning look. "You're not cut out for this line of work."

"What happened to Treu? Where are we now?" I asked.

"He told us where to find you shortly after everything went down. Then he disappeared. As for where we are now, still orbiting Nexo Isla. We'll be here for a while but all the same, if you're not hitching a ride when we leave, we want you gone. Sooner rather than later."

"…Why didn't you just let me die." I grumbled, trying hard to not think about Bim. Trying and failing to do away with the miserable loneliness hollowing out my chest. She was in my dreams and I wanted nothing more than to sleep eternally and be with her.

"Don't get it twisted, it was nothing personal. Most of us would have been more than willing to put you down…" I gave a hard glare at Gerald as Leeroy continued. "…but the big man put a price on your life and we collected. He was insistent that you would live without him dirtying his own hands. I won't pretend to understand his motives but the money was good and so here we are."

"So this is it?" I said, asking a question without really meaning to.

"What else would there be?" Princess countered. "I brought you on for a job and my own curiosity. The job's done and I got what answers I could out of you. You're no good to us, so this is the part where you get paid, then you fuck off."

I was at a loss. Some part of me had resigned myself to working for the mercs indefinitely. It was common enough practice for employers to string their indentured workers along by piling fees and dues and misdemeanors on any outstanding debt so they could keep someone trapped in their employ. It was the damnedest thing. I'd wanted out for a few months and now that I was suddenly my own man, I hadn't the slightest what to do with myself. Why was the dream of freedom so intoxicating while the reality of it was paralyzing? I finally had options and I had no idea which way to go.

I'd spent something like half a year with the merc and somehow, those few terrible months had reforged me. I'd spent so long running away that I never looked ahead until recently. I wasn't some assassin who pulled the trigger just to watch the blood fly, that wasn't me anymore. I couldn't lie to myself anymore. Couldn't justify the bloodshed. What I'd done, the man I'd been, was unforgivable. I never wanted to take another life. Maybe I'd defend myself if needs be, but I'd burn that bridge while I was crossing it. Then again, maybe I wouldn't and Bim would be waiting for me in the next life…

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Who the hell was I now? Where would I go and what would I do? Did I really want to live a life just waiting for death so I could be with the woman I loved once more? If I did live that way, merely surviving until my expiration, was that even life? What would Bim think of me if I reached her bent and broken by my years apart from her? What would be the point in all that? Why not just get a gun and skip to the end? Hell, I could probably off myself with my own flames if I really wanted to.

Was that what I wanted? What Bim wanted for me?

"I've got nowhere to go," I said bitterly. "So drop me off here. This is as good a place as any to find my own way."

Say what you will about the mercs of the Stalking Shadow, they knew how to kick out an unwanted guest. Within the hour, I tramped on to a shuttle going planetside with a few dozen others. Some were retiring, others trading their services to a new company but the majority were just visiting the markets long enough to spend their pay, and then there was me. Aimless and heartbroken with everything I owned on my back or in my pockets and nowhere worth headed to.

I had enough money to buy a palace and spend a long while living a life of luxury. If I wanted a job, 'President' Celio would make it happen. He was basically king of the world now and mine was one of the few faces he could pick out of a crowd. The mercs were sticking around as a combination honor guard/drill cadre while they recovered and recruited. President Celio was determined to change the world but that started in Crucibab. Celio was going to end corruption, by legitimizing his criminal empire and changing a few words around. Nepotism would be a thing of the past, as soon as Celio finished putting his own people in the right places. The shadow wars were relics of a bygone age now that Celio had given his thugs badges and changed their job titles from 'enforcers' to 'officers'.

It would have been funny if it weren't so flagrantly hypocritical.

Not that I had much of a leg to stand on. It's not what you know, it's who you know and I used my sole connection for all it was worth. Within a day of landing back on planet I was nationalized, tenured to an imaginary government position and retired with generous albeit limited privileges. As far as public record was concerned, I'd always lived in Crucibab and been a servant of the people. Yeah right, and Celio's dictatorship hadn't overthrown a democratic republic— at least according to the public record which was still changing by the minute.

There was nothing the paper pushers could do to mend the scars of Celio's crusade. The dispossessed, the maimed, the destitute. They all looked to the Savior and received only token reparations in kind. Those who could work had their labor exploited and the rest were just taken advantage of. The organleggers and slave masters found no shortage of desperate people who'd run out of options. It reminded me of my homeworld and it sickened me.

I'd done this— a small part but still larger than most. These people's blood was as much on my hands and those of the other mercs or Celio. I wouldn't run away from the consequences of my actions, I refused to turn a blind eye to my part in this. I'd made this mess, destroyed these people's lives, the least I could do was clean up after myself. It would take years to remove the rubble, to repair what could be saved and rebuild atop the scars of war.

Luckily enough, I had years to spare and the means to make a difference. Abusing my illegitimate position to do some good for the city and its people seemed like karmic justice. I could misallocate funds, overstaff public works and prioritize reconstruction all at Celio's expense. He had enough money that misplacing a few million every day went beneath his notice and that of his inner circle. I may not have been a genius, but I could spend money and build roads. I could help the people who needed it and do a little bit of good trying to clean my guilty conscience.

I wasn't Bim. I could wave a hand and fix the world. I wasn't Celio. I couldn't inspire and beguile the masses to follow where I led. I wasn't even Leeroy. I don't know if I'd ever be able to plan more than a few steps ahead. I was just me. A wannabe cowboy creeping near his thirties and still hardly the wiser for all my years. I'd keep moving forward and maybe one day, I'd find my own way. That was what pioneer's did. We wandered into the unknown and built roads for those who followed in our footsteps. We weren't much for planning, we didn't care to lead, couldn't reshape reality on a whim. Yet somehow we still managed to change the world, one day at a time with nothing but courage in our guts and the strength of our backs.

Somehow, no matter how far we traveled or how lost we got, we always found our way.

The thought gave me the warm and fuzzies. The future had a million questions out there and maybe as many answers. I had my whole life and then some to search them out. It made me wonder if Bim's way of thinking, if living life in the pursuit of knowledge, wasn't such a bad way to go about it. It was certainly better than trudging through life with nothing better than killing time in mind.

It was the slightest thing, but I could have sworn I felt her ghost holding my hand just then.

I had nowhere to go and nothing better to do. That meant anything and everything was out there waiting for me. I'd live a life worthy of the one Bim had gave for me, and that started… how? It was a good question. I didn't really know how, but figuring that out seemed like something she'd do. I'd ask questions, explore and learn all I could manage, trying to do some good all the while. I'd be a man worthy of standing by her side when I finally left this life for the next.

I remembered a conversation we'd had as clearly as if she was speaking to me now.

Bim had wanted to cut back the secrets of time, materia and all this reality has to offer thus becoming as a god. She'd wanted to make reality her bitch. The aching in my broken heart gained a hint of warmth at the thought. Following in her footsteps, walking the path she'd taken before me… It seemed like she was right there at my side. It made life seem less lonely. For the first time in days, I saw color again and the world was tragically beautiful. Becoming a god? Making reality my bitch? How hard could that be? If it got me to Bim in the end, if I could stand by her as an equal, nothing else mattered.

After all, she wasn't really gone. She was just waiting for me somewhere over the horizon. I'd get there eventually and when I did, I wanted to have a full life of stories to share with her. I had to get her money's worth out of this life she'd bought for me. Anything less was an insult.

Eternity wasn't going anywhere but in the mean time, life was slipping through my fingers. I had to make the most of it.

"One day, Bim. We'll be together again, just wait for me."