>> Bang bang, baby shot me down

[witchmaker]

[ Angela appears on the Plane suddenly, stumbling backwards. Her gun is in one hand, pointed toward something that was before her mere seconds before. Her other hand is pressed up against her chest, right above her left breast. The arm aiming the gun is shaking, and the gray suit fabric beneath her other hand is slowly turning a dark red, as are

Comments

[contract_star]

Firo? Angela! [Running over now.]

[witchmaker]

He... i... [ She attempts to turn her head at towards his voice, instead it simply lolls to the side. ]

[contract_star]

[Seven years only change so much. He's immediately back in cool, calm Contractor mode, pressing both hands to the gunshot wound.]

What happened?

[witchmaker]

The-- oth-- fam-- [ That's about all you're getting from her, Hei. She bites down, closing her eyes. It's hard to keep them open, pain searing through her chest. It's not going to be long, and that realization causes tears to well up in her eyes. ]

[contract_star]

It's alright. You don't have to say anything else. [Pulls off his jacket, folds it up and slips it as gently as he can under her head. He then goes back to putting pressure on her wound.]

[witchmaker]

[ The pressure keeps her alive a bit longer, but her heart's starting to quiet, and her breathing is growing more and more shallow. She looks up at Li momentarily, tears spilling out over her cheeks, running down to linger on her earlobes before getting lost in her hair. ]

P-- proud... f... you.

[ That's all that's left. With one final breath, her life slips away. ]

[contract_star]

I'm sorry. Angela...I'm sorry.

[Watches her fade, his face screwing up a little. When her heart stops beating he sort of sinks inside himself and slumps a little, his hair in his eyes.]

[witchmaker]

[ It's dark. Pitch dark and quiet. There's absolutely nothing, nothing to feel, nothing to hear or see. She finds herself floating there, silent.

She wonders when she'll be able to come back, and if she'll have caught up to Hei and Misaki by then. Maybe she'd get to meet her godson, and Hei's daughter. She wanted to, eventually.

She wonders if this is part of what Hei remembered, or if his future deviates from her own. Perhaps in this future, she wouldn't come back.

Maybe she'd go home, and the Plane would vanish from her life completely. No, it can't. She wouldn't let it. What else did she have to look forward to?

The darkness is still there, but the numbness is becoming less and less. Vaguely she's aware of a soft feeling in her chest. Her heart was starting to beat again... ]

[contract_star]

[Just sort of sits there, lost, oblivious to what's happening.]

[witchmaker]

[ The first strange part of the process is probably the puddle of blood on the floor. It had become large from the numerous gunshot wounds, larger than it currently was now... and even larger than now... and now... In fact, the puddle wasn't spreading at all. It was moving in reverse, almost like someone was rewinding the bleeding process.

The second strange part is the way things start to close. Of the four gunshots Angela had endured, two of them had kept their slugs. Two bullets jingle as they fall to the floor of the plane, pushed out of her body. The other injuries are busy draining her clothes of their red stains as they slowly start to fill in once more.

The third is the shuddered breath and the cough as Angela takes in a lungful of the Plane's air once more. ]

[contract_star]

[Hei hears and then feels the blood shifting, and he stares at it in pure shock. He's seen this before of course (even though it was seven years ago for him), and he still remembers exactly what it was like.]

[When she breathes he makes a convulsive move toward her.] A-Angela?

[witchmaker]

[ She makes a soft sound. It hurts, it hurts all over, her skin and muscles moving in ways that weren't meant to happen over brief periods of time, if at all.

And eventually she's breathing normally again, and her heart has fallen back into its steady rhythm, as though it had never stopped beating to begin with. ]

Hei..?

[contract_star]

How...how...it was like Firo, like his...

[Face blossoms into a smile.] You're back...

[witchmaker]

I'm... back?

[ She sits up slowly. It hurts, she hurts all over, but he's right. The blackness that had swallowed her before has faded. She looks at Hei, lost. ]

How am I...

[contract_star]

I don't know. I don't...

[Gives up and pulls her into a tight hug.]

[witchmaker]

[ She buries her face in his shoulder. This is all so strange and weird and different, she's not sure how... ]

The...

[ She is sure how. ]

That picture.