The fact that Angel doesn't return to their rooms that night doesn't worry Ratonhnhaké:ton. It's far from unusual for her to be distracted by something or other and, by now, if there is anything that he needs to know, he trusts she will tell him. So he goes to bed with only a passing thought and a feeling of missing her presence, but falls asleep nonetheless.
She is so familiar now that he doesn't notice when she returns, when she wraps herself up in his arms and presses herself up against him. He only instinctively tightens his grip around her and buries his nose in her hair. It takes some time before the sounds of her crying breaks through the darkness and haziness of sleep, and for a moment he does little but stir and sigh deeply, only to settle again, with a mind that it's little but a dream.
Only it persists, and finally he blinks his eyes open, and lifts his head. Angel is back, he finally realises. She's back, and she's ... crying.
"Angel?"
It's little more than a whisper, and he doesn't move. If this is what she wants, then that is what he will give her. Perhaps he shouldn't have alerted her to the fact that he is awake, but ...
She goes still by instinct. Holding her breath to try and lesson the sound of her crying. Be still, be quiet. It's hard. It's hard to move an inch.
But nor does she want to worry him. So when she thinks she can keep her voice steady (she can't) she does her best to reassure him. "It's okay, you can go back to sleep."
Each word is pinched. Stilted in her effort to keep going but failing in the shakiness of the breath between it.
The fact that she doesn't answer immediately gives away just what she's doing, but Ratonhnhaké:ton doesn't press her. Instead, he wordlessly moves one hand to put it on top of hers, gently wrapping his fingers around.
It felt like benediction, as his hand curled over hers and it only made it worse. Her sobbing growing harder for a second in the care he gave her. Curled in harder, the sweeter he is, the more she sobs. She can bare any kind of pain, but how gently he reassures her - that she falls to pieces at. Consistently and over again.
She's mentioned Roland before. One of the vault hunters? He thinks she has told him that he reminds her of that man. Never said anything about him being dead, however.
Makes him wonder how it could be her fault.
"What happened?"
She must have heard it from Zer0, if she didn't know before. Wonder what he told her.
Saying it out loud is impossible for a minute. Because it makes it real. Makes it true and she can't stand that to be true.
But it is. It always is. This is what life is. There is nothing good, and if there is, it has a timespan. A clock counting down over their head until -
"Jack killed him. After they killed me. To teach them a lesson, pay them back for... My death. To teach them what they had to lose."
She can almost hear it, the desperation and madness in Jack's voice as he demanded her to change her path. Threatened the Vault Hunters in a tone she had never heard since the day she had been sold and traded for the bounty of a life time.
It wouldn't matter if it took her a minute, an hour, or if she never spoke the words for the whole night. She would wait for her to be ready, if she ever would be. Because he'd only like to hear about it from her.
And as always, she takes Jack's actions and places the blame for them on herself.
"I know this is difficult for you to accept," he murmurs. "But it is not your fault."
Another moment and she curls in tighter, curls into the space he provides, where he curls around her.
"Isn't it? I knew there would - would be consequences. For whoever dared to do that for me. That's my fault too. I only cared - I only cared about ending myself. I was being selfish, I was just thinking about myself. I should have known what he'd do - I should have planned their escape better... I... "
More tears, no matter how hard she grits her teeth, swallows on the hollow in her throat, the pain of it would not pass, and the tears would not stop. Hiccuping messily, her face turning into the pillow, her horns pressing heavily into the soft material as she desperately tried to smother the regret of it away.
He doesn't answer immediately. Considers for a moment whether this is a conversation to be had right now, when she is barely holding herself together in his arms. Perhaps there is something else she needs instead. Something to calm her down, instead of question what she feels is the truth.
He has to think for a few seconds. Bring up old memories that are half forgotten. Then, he starts to sing, barely beyond a whisper and only for her ears, a lullaby that his mother used to sing to him.
She might be waiting for it, so she can bury it deeper and deeper into this comfortable coffin of guilt that Jack has made for her so well. Her body so easily fitted into this loathing, this ability to hate herself that comes like second nature.
But she should have known he'd never let that sit. Never let herself tear herself apart. No matter how often or how hard or how determined she'd be about it. Not when Jack had arrived, not when she had torn others to pieces, he stayed with her for all of that.
That it follows the same, just the same, as he doesn't bite into it. Turns softer in the way she never expects. His voice so quiet and no, she doesn't know what it means, but she doesn't need to, his voice is all she cares to know. Warm and forgiving like she so desperately wanted.
That even as she seems to still cry, it's not quite so hard, not so sharp inside her chest where her breath begins to even out. Slowing down to just little hiccups.
When the sobs quiet down to hiccups, when she stops shaking so much in his arms, he stops singing. But he still doesn't speak, just rubs his thumb soothingly over her palm as he bends down to press a kiss to the top of her head.
Sometimes, there are things one simply couldn't expect or predict, or never even knew about. Sometimes, one simply cannot do enough. And it hurts. He knows that. So, maybe for tonight, that's all it can be.
She doesn't sleep, not exactly - more just an empty, unhappy state, where her eyes are closed and her body is restless, it's not the first time either of them have had nightmares, or that she has cried in her sleep. It simply happens, it's what they are. Too much in both their lives like that. But to broken from it - to wake up to him in those seconds where her heart is beating at a thousand miles an hour, to hear his far more steady, as always, it calms her.
That when it's some hours later, she rolls over and doesn't get out of bed. No idea what time it was, or care what she had to do Just lays on her side, her hands tucked in between their bodies so she could lift her fingers to trace his features. Curling under his eye, the corner of his lips, that strong line of his jaw.
Not sure if he's awake, and to that, the words are murmured into the early morning air like dust curling into light, to be forgotten by the harsher light of day. "What am I going to do without you? How am I ever going to wake up if I can't hear your heart to tell me it's okay?"
He stays awake for a while, listening to her breathing and ensuring that she doesn't wake up as soon as she's drifted off. But even if he might have liked to stay awake to watch over her, sleep doesn't tend to be cooperative, and he soon finds himself falling back asleep.
When she speaks, he's only partly aware of the fact that she's being spoken to, not asleep but not awake either. He just breathes in deeply, his whole torso shifting with it, but doesn't move.
She lays still when he moves, so he doesn't wake up, doesn't disturb him any further. He was so peaceful when he slept - like all the troubles drifted off his features, his weight settled comfortably into the bed and against her. Doesn't even dare to breathe, in case she wakes him up. That would truly be her greatest sin if she unsettled him from a peaceful sleep.
Then when she's sure she won't disturb him, she shifts in, nuzzling against his shoulder as she takes slow breaths on her parched throat from how long and how hard she cried the night before.
Didn't want to get up and face the day, didn't want to face anyone at all. Just wanted to stay right here for as long as he was still there. Arranging herself to drape over his shoulder, lean into his neck, settling the blankets to wrap them both up comfortably. Just tracing her fingers back and forth on the top of the blanket as she contemplated... nothing much at all.
Grief was strange like that. Some point, where she had felt so much, she no longer could feel anything at all. Just a million miles away and ten feet underwater.
But his heart was still beating, and for that, she could be grateful.
How lucky for them, then, that there is nowhere they need to be.
When she settles against him and he feels the weight of the blankets on him, he slowly drifts off deeper again. For a good while, he doesn't move at all. But it doesn't normally stay that way with him, and eventually he shifts, wrapping an arm tighter around her as he rolls forward, nearly enough to pin her to the mattress, and presses his face to her shoulder.
She goes over like a straw house. Easily pressed into the bed, his weight sinking her down like an overgrown pillow.
Even as miserable as she is, it brings a smile to her face. It makes her feel guilty, but - it's true, regardless. He's warm and happy with her to still seek her out and find her a comfort. No matter what she did, what she caused, he... still found some value to this little wretched body of hers, this cruel mind of hers.
And... right now - she needs this. She needs this more than she can say. She can't stand her body, at this moment, weak and feeble and rotten to its core. This empty thing Jack left behind that has no purpose but the suffering. She flitters like a petal, long past any beauty, barely hanging on to the dead cut stem. If the world breathes too hard.
But he's here. He's here. Pressing her down, holding her there. His breath, the rise and fall of his body, the way he nuzzles into a softer spot that makes wriggle so they could both be comfortable. She couldn't accept forgiveness or kind words. If he moved away or spoke, it would undo it. She just... doesn't have to try so hard, when he is keeping her broken, sharp pieces, as a shape. Not just shattered remains she slices herself apart.
He stills there with a deep sigh of contentment, and doesn't move for the next half hour. Eventually, though, he starts to come to, awareness seeping into his mind. The first thing he registers is warmth and something soft beneath his face that he's become very familiar with: Angel's fur.
Instinctively, he nuzzles into it, his arms tightening around her as he hums low in his chest.
It's enough to bring her too, if slowly because most especially, it tickles when his breath puffs against her fur and makes it stand up, nevermind that vibration rumbles into her body.
When she opens her eyes, she slides her fingers down, into his hair gently as she cards through it, running into a tangle here or there that she uses her claws as gently as she can to comb them free.
It's lazy, she can't summon the energy to move if she had to, doesn't want to at all. She couldn't face anyone today if she tried. The guilt gnaws back alive as she gains consciousness as she is left in the world where that simple truth is there: Roland is dead.
In a few moments, he's awake, but he doesn't move. Not when she brushes through his hair like that, when she seems content where she is.
Today, he will be with her. And one day, maybe they can talk about it more, but he has said what is most important and, right now, what she needs to do is grieve. Everyone needs to grieve when they have lost, especially because they don't always get a chance.
For a while, she's quiet in the early hours for the day. It maybe was an hour, maybe ten minutes, she didn't really know, or care about it, just playing with his hair and feeling his warmth.
"... He looked like Charles, you know? Same eyes. They were kind. They always wanted to do the right thing. Bit like you too. Slow to smile. But when he did you knew he really meant it. He was really brave too. No matter what Jack said, or did, he'd never step down. He'd always stand up and fight."
Her braiding has gotten better, not so messy, not so slow. It forms something now, in her reflections, she starts again.
"The way I used to talk to people... I could talk into their minds. That's how I met him. I spoke to his mind. It was all words Jack told me to say, about him having a great purpose, and he'd call me 'Guardian Angel', him and the other Vault Hunters. But... they were my friends. Or... well, I wanted them to be my friend. I don't think they thought of me that way. They just hated me, in the end. But... I liked... I liked to imagine we were friends, that we'd... we'd go on adventures, together. Even if, in the end, all the adventures and pain and suffering they went through, they were actually just fighting... me, they just didn't know it."
Another silence. Another little frown, clear she's going to cry but that's not... what she finds important right now. Not what is important. She needs guidance right now, not knowing where or who she was supposed to become. "Do you think it's silly to miss someone who you hurt, like that? To mourn them, when you are the reason they're dead?"
After a while, he shifts just enough to rest his cheek against her shoulder instead, then stills again. Still holding onto her, breathing softly as he listens.
She's talked about some of this before. Her work for Jack, what she did in his name. Every time there is so much regret and pain when she speaks of it, but still he doesn't see how it is at all necessary for her to carry this on her shoulders. Jack certainly carries no remorse, even though he's the one who should. For all of it, all that pain and suffering that he put so many people through. And Angel was one of them.
"I am not so certain they would hate you."
Zer0 apparently did not. Why should anyone else? When she sacrificed herself to try atone for what had been done. Even then, it is one thing to blame herself for her own actions even if they were Jack's orders, and something else to blame herself for what Jack did in her name.
Will she always insist on it? He wishes he could make her see it the way he does.
She laughs, tired and sore, not in her body, but in her mind, from this. She does her best, as much as she can, to never dwell. He gives her so many reasons not to. To take each day as a gift she never thought she'd have. To get to share her happiness and sadness with so many people. That she is even here, talking about it with him...
... That's not nothing. Not to her. Never to her.
But it didn't change it.
"One of the last things he ever said to me, before... before he finally found out the truth, was that he told me to never speak to him again. To never get in contact with him. I got the impression he regretted ever meeting me. They all did."
It hurts. It hurts so very much, and she'd never told anyone it before. Hard to. Hard to know how much they could never forgive the things she'd done because she'd broken their trust so utterly, how could they?
There are clearly parts to this story that Ratonhnhaké:ton hasn't been told, and clearly a lot, because what Angel is saying now seems ... disjointed. He tries to connect the dots for a moment. Did Zer0 say that? What she'd told them about it before, it sounded like he was friendly.
It just leaves him confused, so he gives up trying to work it out.
"Roland." Her fingers tense, holding in the air, before she tries to settle them back down. "Roland and Lilith and Brick and Mordecai..." It's painful, it is, but she needs to get this out, to him at least.
"They were pretty upset with me. I had just bombed their city and killed hundreds of innocent people they were protecting."
Yes, she's told him she's killed a lot of people. Ratonhnhaké:ton will still largely blame that on Jack, for making his daughter do his bidding under threat. But he supposes he forgets, sometimes, because he struggles to imagine her doing it, when she always seems so worried about disappointing people, when she tries so hard to always do the right thing.
That makes sense. That they'd be 'upset'. Probably quite a bit more than just upset. He can't fault them for that.
"I see."
He shifts finally. Moves off her to lie down beside her instead, still with his arms around her, tugging her close to his chest as he bends forward to nuzzle her cheek.
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She is so familiar now that he doesn't notice when she returns, when she wraps herself up in his arms and presses herself up against him. He only instinctively tightens his grip around her and buries his nose in her hair. It takes some time before the sounds of her crying breaks through the darkness and haziness of sleep, and for a moment he does little but stir and sigh deeply, only to settle again, with a mind that it's little but a dream.
Only it persists, and finally he blinks his eyes open, and lifts his head. Angel is back, he finally realises. She's back, and she's ... crying.
"Angel?"
It's little more than a whisper, and he doesn't move. If this is what she wants, then that is what he will give her. Perhaps he shouldn't have alerted her to the fact that he is awake, but ...
He's worried.
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But nor does she want to worry him. So when she thinks she can keep her voice steady (she can't) she does her best to reassure him. "It's okay, you can go back to sleep."
Each word is pinched. Stilted in her effort to keep going but failing in the shakiness of the breath between it.
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"I won't."
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"He's dead. Roland's dead. It's all my fault."
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Makes him wonder how it could be her fault.
"What happened?"
She must have heard it from Zer0, if she didn't know before. Wonder what he told her.
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But it is. It always is. This is what life is. There is nothing good, and if there is, it has a timespan. A clock counting down over their head until -
"Jack killed him. After they killed me. To teach them a lesson, pay them back for... My death. To teach them what they had to lose."
She can almost hear it, the desperation and madness in Jack's voice as he demanded her to change her path. Threatened the Vault Hunters in a tone she had never heard since the day she had been sold and traded for the bounty of a life time.
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And as always, she takes Jack's actions and places the blame for them on herself.
"I know this is difficult for you to accept," he murmurs. "But it is not your fault."
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"Isn't it? I knew there would - would be consequences. For whoever dared to do that for me. That's my fault too. I only cared - I only cared about ending myself. I was being selfish, I was just thinking about myself. I should have known what he'd do - I should have planned their escape better... I... "
More tears, no matter how hard she grits her teeth, swallows on the hollow in her throat, the pain of it would not pass, and the tears would not stop. Hiccuping messily, her face turning into the pillow, her horns pressing heavily into the soft material as she desperately tried to smother the regret of it away.
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He has to think for a few seconds. Bring up old memories that are half forgotten. Then, he starts to sing, barely beyond a whisper and only for her ears, a lullaby that his mother used to sing to him.
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But she should have known he'd never let that sit. Never let herself tear herself apart. No matter how often or how hard or how determined she'd be about it. Not when Jack had arrived, not when she had torn others to pieces, he stayed with her for all of that.
That it follows the same, just the same, as he doesn't bite into it. Turns softer in the way she never expects. His voice so quiet and no, she doesn't know what it means, but she doesn't need to, his voice is all she cares to know. Warm and forgiving like she so desperately wanted.
That even as she seems to still cry, it's not quite so hard, not so sharp inside her chest where her breath begins to even out. Slowing down to just little hiccups.
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Sometimes, there are things one simply couldn't expect or predict, or never even knew about. Sometimes, one simply cannot do enough. And it hurts. He knows that. So, maybe for tonight, that's all it can be.
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That when it's some hours later, she rolls over and doesn't get out of bed. No idea what time it was, or care what she had to do Just lays on her side, her hands tucked in between their bodies so she could lift her fingers to trace his features. Curling under his eye, the corner of his lips, that strong line of his jaw.
Not sure if he's awake, and to that, the words are murmured into the early morning air like dust curling into light, to be forgotten by the harsher light of day. "What am I going to do without you? How am I ever going to wake up if I can't hear your heart to tell me it's okay?"
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When she speaks, he's only partly aware of the fact that she's being spoken to, not asleep but not awake either. He just breathes in deeply, his whole torso shifting with it, but doesn't move.
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Then when she's sure she won't disturb him, she shifts in, nuzzling against his shoulder as she takes slow breaths on her parched throat from how long and how hard she cried the night before.
Didn't want to get up and face the day, didn't want to face anyone at all. Just wanted to stay right here for as long as he was still there. Arranging herself to drape over his shoulder, lean into his neck, settling the blankets to wrap them both up comfortably. Just tracing her fingers back and forth on the top of the blanket as she contemplated... nothing much at all.
Grief was strange like that. Some point, where she had felt so much, she no longer could feel anything at all. Just a million miles away and ten feet underwater.
But his heart was still beating, and for that, she could be grateful.
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When she settles against him and he feels the weight of the blankets on him, he slowly drifts off deeper again. For a good while, he doesn't move at all. But it doesn't normally stay that way with him, and eventually he shifts, wrapping an arm tighter around her as he rolls forward, nearly enough to pin her to the mattress, and presses his face to her shoulder.
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Even as miserable as she is, it brings a smile to her face. It makes her feel guilty, but - it's true, regardless. He's warm and happy with her to still seek her out and find her a comfort. No matter what she did, what she caused, he... still found some value to this little wretched body of hers, this cruel mind of hers.
And... right now - she needs this. She needs this more than she can say. She can't stand her body, at this moment, weak and feeble and rotten to its core. This empty thing Jack left behind that has no purpose but the suffering. She flitters like a petal, long past any beauty, barely hanging on to the dead cut stem. If the world breathes too hard.
But he's here. He's here. Pressing her down, holding her there. His breath, the rise and fall of his body, the way he nuzzles into a softer spot that makes wriggle so they could both be comfortable. She couldn't accept forgiveness or kind words. If he moved away or spoke, it would undo it. She just... doesn't have to try so hard, when he is keeping her broken, sharp pieces, as a shape. Not just shattered remains she slices herself apart.
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Instinctively, he nuzzles into it, his arms tightening around her as he hums low in his chest.
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When she opens her eyes, she slides her fingers down, into his hair gently as she cards through it, running into a tangle here or there that she uses her claws as gently as she can to comb them free.
It's lazy, she can't summon the energy to move if she had to, doesn't want to at all. She couldn't face anyone today if she tried. The guilt gnaws back alive as she gains consciousness as she is left in the world where that simple truth is there: Roland is dead.
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Today, he will be with her. And one day, maybe they can talk about it more, but he has said what is most important and, right now, what she needs to do is grieve. Everyone needs to grieve when they have lost, especially because they don't always get a chance.
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"... He looked like Charles, you know? Same eyes. They were kind. They always wanted to do the right thing. Bit like you too. Slow to smile. But when he did you knew he really meant it. He was really brave too. No matter what Jack said, or did, he'd never step down. He'd always stand up and fight."
Her braiding has gotten better, not so messy, not so slow. It forms something now, in her reflections, she starts again.
"The way I used to talk to people... I could talk into their minds. That's how I met him. I spoke to his mind. It was all words Jack told me to say, about him having a great purpose, and he'd call me 'Guardian Angel', him and the other Vault Hunters. But... they were my friends. Or... well, I wanted them to be my friend. I don't think they thought of me that way. They just hated me, in the end. But... I liked... I liked to imagine we were friends, that we'd... we'd go on adventures, together. Even if, in the end, all the adventures and pain and suffering they went through, they were actually just fighting... me, they just didn't know it."
Another silence. Another little frown, clear she's going to cry but that's not... what she finds important right now. Not what is important. She needs guidance right now, not knowing where or who she was supposed to become. "Do you think it's silly to miss someone who you hurt, like that? To mourn them, when you are the reason they're dead?"
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She's talked about some of this before. Her work for Jack, what she did in his name. Every time there is so much regret and pain when she speaks of it, but still he doesn't see how it is at all necessary for her to carry this on her shoulders. Jack certainly carries no remorse, even though he's the one who should. For all of it, all that pain and suffering that he put so many people through. And Angel was one of them.
"I am not so certain they would hate you."
Zer0 apparently did not. Why should anyone else? When she sacrificed herself to try atone for what had been done. Even then, it is one thing to blame herself for her own actions even if they were Jack's orders, and something else to blame herself for what Jack did in her name.
Will she always insist on it? He wishes he could make her see it the way he does.
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... That's not nothing. Not to her. Never to her.
But it didn't change it.
"One of the last things he ever said to me, before... before he finally found out the truth, was that he told me to never speak to him again. To never get in contact with him. I got the impression he regretted ever meeting me. They all did."
It hurts. It hurts so very much, and she'd never told anyone it before. Hard to. Hard to know how much they could never forgive the things she'd done because she'd broken their trust so utterly, how could they?
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It just leaves him confused, so he gives up trying to work it out.
"Who said that?"
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"They were pretty upset with me. I had just bombed their city and killed hundreds of innocent people they were protecting."
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Yes, she's told him she's killed a lot of people. Ratonhnhaké:ton will still largely blame that on Jack, for making his daughter do his bidding under threat. But he supposes he forgets, sometimes, because he struggles to imagine her doing it, when she always seems so worried about disappointing people, when she tries so hard to always do the right thing.
That makes sense. That they'd be 'upset'. Probably quite a bit more than just upset. He can't fault them for that.
"I see."
He shifts finally. Moves off her to lie down beside her instead, still with his arms around her, tugging her close to his chest as he bends forward to nuzzle her cheek.
"I do not think it's 'silly' to miss them."
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