Meld blinks dazedly for several seconds, suddenly coming to the realization that she no longer had her hand around her victim's neck. "Nick...?" She takes several more moments to come out of her daze and looks down at the thug at her feet. She can see from here that he's still breathing, though barely, and there's more than a little blood seeping out of his neck because of her claws. She's no expert but she thinks he'll probably live.

Meld sighs still trying to get her thoughts in order. Had she really just done that? Or rather almost done that? She supposed she had and it had felt...good. That couldn't be right thought could it? She wasn't a bad person, she wasn't a bad person, not really, everything she had done in her life she had done to survive but she hadn't needed to kill this man in order to survive. But it wasn't just about her own personal survival now was it? It was about the survival of her people. This human was no longer her people, hadn't been for a long time. His death meant no more than the death of any animal. She spat on him then turned to follow Nick out of the alley.

"What you said there... Is that really the way you feel about humans? I mean... Do you think it's their fault?" Meld considered her answer carefully before speaking. "If a human is accepting of our kind and doesn't cause us problems I have no problem with them. Live and let live. But yes, if humans like that, humans that despise us and prosecute us, that is exactly what I believe. They have a choice in how they act. They chose wrong and humans like that need to be dealt with for the betterment of our kind."

For meld it was really that simple. It was a war out there, mutants against humans. Those who fought were the soldiers those who didn't on both sides, were the civilians. The war might eventually be brought to them, but until that time Meld saw no reason to bother. Humans were lesser and so long as they didn't cause any problems they simply weren't worth her time or effort.

For the first time since the battle began, Meld noticed the knife still stuck in Nick's shoulder. "Nick you're injured," she said stopping him with a hand. "You have a knife in your shoulder." She hadn't realized that he suffered from the same lack of feeling she did and knew how dangerous such wounds could be if left untreated.

Nick watched Aris closely, watching her face as she thought about what she was going to say and the way her face looked as she was saying it. He listened carefully, taking in the things she was saying and considering them but not really knowing what to do with these things. Nick sighed lightly to himself and turned to leave the alley, hoping Aris would follow, the knife in his shoulder finally visible with a glint from the lights on the street. "Nick, you're injured, you have a knife in your shoulder."

"What?" Nick turned around quickly, looking to his shoulder and letting out a sigh, realizing that that was the weapon that caused the whole inability to realize it was there. "I always hated this part of my ability..." Nick sighed lightly, pulling the knife out and looking at it for a moment, his own blood dripping slowly from the blade. He drops it to the ground and looks at his shoulder for a moment, his body is starting to calm down.

The adrenaline that was pumping because of the fight slows down and Nick's body slowly goes back to normal, his super human strength fleeting and his body beginning to feel the effects of the fight. He groans in pain before dropping to a knee, his back is throbbing, his knee is sore and his shoulder is on fire. A hand darts to the injured flesh,trying to protect it from any other injury as his hand plants on the ground. Nick doubles over, the pain from the fight flushing through his body, his mind no longer races with the previous thoughts, it only fills with the agony he's feeling from the stab wound. The splitting of muscle and flesh and the penetration in his deltoid, making it difficult for him to even attempt to move his arm.

"Let's..." Nick pauses a moment, trying to stay strong, trying not to show weakness. "Let's just keep going..." He slowly takes a breath in and forces himself to sit up, his body throbbing from the fight. "I'll... I'll be ok... Let's just get somewhere so I can get stitched up..." He tries to stand but fails, still feeling weak from the pain.

"I always hated this part of my ability..." Obviously Meld hadn't been told all the details of her friend's ability then. It seemed that he, as so many other mutants, had a price to pay for his power. She watched as Nick pulled the blade out of his shoulder and a look of pain began to appear on his face. Meld was quick to tear off part of her shirt and wrap it, as best she could, around the wound to stop the bleeding. She was no doctor but she had been through enough in the past few years to have a basic knowledge of first aid. That done she took a quick look down at her own body, ensuring she had gotten no wounds of her own. All she saw was some light bruising on her right wrist where she had been dragged into the alley. Good, nothing too serious.

"We need to get you some help," Meld said, going down on one knee next to her friend. She wrapped his arm around her shoulder and helped him to his feet. She was careful to try and minimize and movement to his injured arm and hoped that was all of his injuries. Gingerly, she led her friend out of the alley and back onto the street, his weight heavily supported by her.

Once on the street, Meld set Nick carefully on a bench and hailed a cab trying to keep her eyes downcast and her metallic hand out of sight until they were actually inside the cab. She was in no mood to deal with more anti mutant sentiments and her friend was in desperate need of medical attention. Carefully she helped Nick back to his feet and into the cab. "My friend has been mugged and needs medical attention. Please bring us to the nearest hospital." She kept her voice calm and even, not wanting this to turn bad. Who knows, maybe they would even get lucky and he'd either be one of the few humans who didn't hate mutants, or he'd remain unobservant and oblivious to the fact that she was a mutant. Either option seemed good.

The cab ride was quick and to the point, this late in the evening and the traffic would typically die down to a dull roar, not as bad as usual obviously. "I'll be alright Aris, I promise..." Nick groaned lightly as he shifted in his seat, leaning his head against the glass before inconspicuously pulling his jacket open and looking down at his blood soaked T-Shirt. The knife from the last kick had obviously flung out of the mans hand and into his side.

The car came to a halt and Nick threw his uninjured arm over the shoulder of Aris as he helped him out of the car, and into the emergency room. Not enough words being spoken as the two took their trip to the hospital and to the emergency room. Nurses rushed out quickly with a wheelchair and sat Nick down in it before attempting to cart him off. "She comes with me!"

"No sir, only family in the room with you..." One of the nurses pushing the wheel chair spoke to him.

"She's my sister! Sis! Come on!" Nick looked back over his shoulder.

"I'm sorry sir but we're going somewhere she can't follow."

"Why is that? Why cant she come with me? I want her by my side..." Nick shot his arm out, grabbing the corner of the wall and holding on for dear life, the nurse stopping dead in her tracks. "Tell me why..."

"She's..."

"She's what? A person? She comes with me..." Nick growls lightly before looking back to Aris and reaching his good hand to his shoulder. His eyes telling her exactly what he was about to do, his hand showing the nurses he was serious but not in any way they could fathom. He was going to cause his body immense pain just so he'd be strong enough to do something with himself rather than be carted off in a wheel chair.

Meld got out of the cab quickly, being sure to pay the cab driver what little money she had on her person (luckily just enough to cover the trip though she wasn't sure how they were going to get back), before helping Nick out of the car. She was thankful that things had gone smoothly. The driver hadn't said a word and Meld saw no reason to speak to the driver. He took them exactly where they needed to go and that's all she could really ask for.

Predictably the trouble began when they got to the hospital. 'Damn, why couldn't these things just be easy for once?' Meld thought to herself in annoyance. "No sir, only family in the room with you...""I'm his sister I'm going with him." Her tone of voice left no room for negotiation.

"I'm sorry sir but we're going somewhere she can't follow." "Like hell I can't follow!" She was starting to get angry again. This was supposed to be a place of healing.

"Why is that? Why cant she come with me? I want her by my side..." And if her best friend wanted her at his side she would remain by his side, no matter what any of these so-called nurses or doctors through. Meld growled audibly, flexing her claws in a menacing fashion.

"You are going to stitch my brother up all good as new. And I am going to come with you to make sure that you're doing your jobs properly." She enunciated every word, speaking very deliberately, as if she were speaking to a child. "We can make this easy or we can make this difficult. Personally I'd rather make this easy, that way we can be out of here quickly and you can forget you ever saw us, but its really up to you." She glared at the head nurse, forcing her to look directly into her electronic eye.

The nurse looked back and forth between the two 'siblings' and didnt know what to think, she obviously had a distaste for mutants and thought that the man she was going to stitch up wasnt but his 'sister' was obviously a mutant to even the untrained eye. "She comes with me..." Nick growled, his thumb close to pressing into his open wound.

"Sir, please stop that... Your threatening to hurt yourself isnt going to make me listen." The nurse shot a glance back at Aris as she spoke commandingly.

"You are going to stitch my brother up all good as new. And I am going to come with you to make sure that you're doing your jobs properly." The nurse didnt know how to respond as Aris let out her threat, nurses in the ER have probably been threatened before on occasion and typically those threats were very empty. But this threat, the nurse could feel in her gut, was a legitimate threat, she swallowed hard and her pulse quickened before she finally gave in, nodding her head yes.

"Good, now... Cmon sis... Let's get this done and get out of here...." Nick smiled lightly as he looked back at Aris, waiting for her to follow. The smile, though, was pretty fake especially if you consider that Nick knew this little fiasco wasnt going to be over this easily. The hospital was probably full of doctors who dont really give a crap about their Hippocratic Oath, their oath to help anyone who needs it despite who or what they are. Nick would be lucky if he got a Doctor that didnt have a death wish and followed the Oath he took when he started practicing medicine, but in this day and age, most of those doctors are already doing what they CAN to help mutants in need and wouldnt be found in a typical hospital.

Meld put her clawed hand down, pleased that this, apparently, wasn't going to get violent. She followed her "brother" into the examination room quietly, although anger still simmered under the surface. It was one thing to be attacked by a bunch of punks, quite another to have a confrontation with trained doctors. They were healers, for god's sake, they should be above the whole mutant discrimination thing. She could only hope that their oath to do no harm meant something and that they would treat her friend properly.

Once in the examination room the nurse left, explaining that the doctor would be there shortly. Meld took the time to look around, still not having a very good feeling about their present situation. If things went badly they were stuck in a hospital full of people, one of them was injured, there were probably security staff around and what if someone decided to call the cops on them? It rarely mattered to the cops that they hadn't actually done anything wrong. Nick plainly had a bloody knife wound and he was walking around with a mutant, that could very well be all the proof they needed of wrong doing. To make matters worse, what if it was possible to take some of Nick's blood or something, and use it to find out that he, too, was a mutant? Not only could that cause all sorts of problems here and now, but it could ruin his life; he had spent so much time and effort hiding it. The room that they find themselves in currently was little different than any other examination room. There were no windows and the only exit was through the main door.

"I don't have a good feeling about this," Meld said quietly. She wasn't sure if they were being recorded or not. "Maybe I shouldn't have brought you here, maybe there's a better option to get you healed, someplace else we could go. Sanctuary maybe." She looked nervously towards the door. It had been stupid of her not to think of Sanctuary to begin with but she had been so worried about Nick that she hadn't stopped to consider anything but the obvious choice for medical attention, that being a hospital.

Nick slowly got up from the wheel chair and sat on the exam table, pulling his jacket down just far enough to show the wound on his shoulder and leaving the wound in his side covered. Nick then proceeds to tear at his T-Shirt, ripping the sleeve off of his arm so the wound is easier to get to. What if they ask for a blood sample? Would they check for the X-Gene? Why would they? Well, I did claim Aris was my sister so they might be suspicious that I am to... Nick shakes his head slowly, trying to shake the thoughts out of his head before looking to Aris as she speaks.

"Why dont you have a good feeling about this? You think they're going to do something bad? Why would they, they're doctors... They took an oath..." Nick sighs lightly, looking around the room as he waits for the doctor to get in to stitch him up. After what seems like hours of Aris shifting around impatiently and Nick looking for things to read with only his eyes, a man in a long white coat walks into the room and pulls up a stool and sits down looking at Nicks arm.

"What happened here?" The doctor speaks into Nicks arm.

"Well, my sister and I were walking down the street when we got pulled into an Alley by some thugs or something... They threatened me and her and we defended ourselves, I received a knife wound in the process. What more is there to tell?" Nick flinches lightly as the doctor prods at his wound. "What took you so long?"

"Oh... Uh... Well to be completely honest and blunt, nobody wanted to come in here... They all seem to be nervous about your sister I guess..." The Doctor seemed calm enough, maybe he was the only mutant sympathizer in the entire hospital, but that doesnt seem to be the luck mutants have. Why was he so calm? Was there something he knew that they didnt know? That similar feeling Nick gets only when bad things are about to happen begins to churn in his gut as he looks on at the doctor who has his gaze set on the phone as he's pulling out a needle with some kind of fluid in it.

"What's that?" Nick looked at the needle as he prepped it to puncture skin, making sure to get any air out of it.

"Oh just something to numb the area...." Nick quickly looks over at Aris, not really knowing what to do in the current situation, especially with his gut churning.

"Why dont you have a good feeling about this?... Meld shook her head. "I don't know I just have a feeling that we shouldn't have come here. Something does seem right to me..." She couldn't quite put her finger on what it was and she hated it. Sure she had a myriad of possible concerns, but what exactly was it that set off her sixth sense, so to speak? Maybe it was just how long they were left here alone...

When the doctor entered the examination room it didn't make Meld feel any better, if anything it made her feel worse. Something about the way he was acting just didn't seem natural and his explanation as to why he took so long, while plausible, just didn't ring true. She got the impression that he knew something that he wasn't telling them, though there was little she could do about it for the time being other than remain vigilant and prepared, if necessary. Whatever was going on, it didn't change the fact that Nick needed medical attention. Hopefully she was just being paranoid, such a trait was common in her line of work after all. It had kept her alive and free more than once.

"No injections," Meld demanded when she saw the doctor preparing the needle. "Just stitch my brother up and be done with it." The doctor gave Nick a questioning look, but when he didn't say anything to contradict Meld the doctor shrugged and began preparing the stitches.

Meld watched Nick's expression with interest, as it went from one of intense pain to one of not feeling anything in a matter of a few minutes. The entire process took about 10 minutes, during which time Meld did not take her eyes off of her friend or the doctor. She had gotten stitches before and everything he was doing seemed to be proper. Perhaps it was only her paranoia after all.

"Please wait here for one more moment while I grab fill out some paperwork," the doctor said, exiting the room and closing the door behind him. Once again, Meld's worry was piqued. The explanation was plausible but something just didn't smell right...

A minute later she heard yelled from the other side of the door, "Put your hands where we can see them, this is the police."

"Damn!" Meld swore, followed by a string of swears. She wasn't sure why the cops were here of what they were being officially charged with, but had a strange suspicion that it might have something to do with the anti-mutant thugs that had so recently dispatched. Probably should have killed them after all.

"No injections" Nick glanced over at Meld for a moment then shrugged to himself silently, almost agreeing with her in her demand. The doctor looked up at him for a confirmation and Nick didnt make a move so the doctor went on with the procedure. The first needle in with the suture and Nick grimaced in pain, the second, yet another grimace, and the third, another, by the 4th suture, Nick couldnt feel anything anymore and grinned lightly to himself. 10 minutes passed and the doctor leaves, announcing needing to get paperwork, then... The police.

"Put your hands where we can see them, this is the police." Sounded through the door and Nick sighed lightly, hoping this night would just end eventually. He pulled his jacket up over his shoulder and looked over at Meld before reaching to his wound and pressing his thumb to it. Nick feels his body fill with more strength at the damage he did to it before he rolls his shoulders and neck, looking at the door most likely with tons of police officers behind it.

"We dont stop moving Aris, we're not going to allow them to see our faces, agreed?" Nick looks to his friend for acceptance of what he said before looking at the door. He abruptly lifts his foot up and slams it hard into the door, sending it and the police officers behind it crashing down. He then goes into a hard sprint, aiming to leave the hospital in one piece with no bullet holes. He slams a shoulder into an officer on his way out the door, clearing the way a bit for Aris before slamming into another officer, all the while moving his legs as fast as he can, not wanting to stop and check on anybody.

"Keep moving!" Nick yells back behind him, hoping he hasnt lost his good friend. He sees the doorway they came through on their way in and charges into it hard with his uninjured shoulder, throwing the doors off of the hinges and sending them tumbling through the waiting room, luckily missing all of the people. Nick continues his charge, seeing the glass emergency room doors, he picks his jacket up over his head to protect himself and goes head and shoulder first through the glass doors, his body pumping with adrenaline and strength. He can feel himself getting stronger and stronger every time he slams into something, his body is going to be punished later but at the current moment in time, he doesnt care, all he cares about is the rush he's getting from his adrenaline and the feeling of his body filling with power.

He continues to run, not letting up, not relenting, his body is loving every minute of it as his Mutant Ability continues to pump. He glances back behind him, once he thinks he's free of the hospital and any further problems, hoping to see the face of his good friend right there.

Meld took a deep breath and watched as Nick triggered is power by pressing his thumb into his wounded shoulder. It was her fault that all this was happening, her fault that Nick had been dragged into this life. Before he had come here to be with her, he had had a perfectly normal happy life. He didn't have to worry about the police or anti-mutant muggers or anything like that. Why had she called him and asked him to come? And why the hell had he listened? But there would be time for guilt later, now they just had to get out of there in one piece."We dont stop moving Aris, we're not going to allow them to see our faces, agreed?" She wasn't sure how much good it would do but Meld took off her jacket and did her best to cover her face with it.

Nick's strength while his power was active never ceased to Amaze Meld, as she watched him barrel into the first set of doors and the two cops at the other side. Meld followed in his wake, clawing the face of a cop who tried to jump on her to stop her momentum. He would probably have the scars for the rest of his life. Another cop tried to trip her but Meld's martial arts training took over and she saw the move almost before it was made and stomped down on the outstretched limb breaking it instantly. By now she could here her two victims screaming, but she just kept running.

Meld could hear gun shots coming from behind her and silently implored whatever power may or may not be out there not to let her get hit. "Don't let them get away!" she heard yelled from somewhere behind her, not bothering to check from where. She could here the sounds of multiple footsteps following them. As Meld barreled past a branching corridor, more cops showed up coming from her right; another managing to get within striking distance. This one slowed her down some, actually having some skill at hand to hand combat. It took Meld precious seconds to dispose of him, breaking his neck in the process and almost allowing the other cops to catch up to her. More gunshots could be heard.

Shoving a wheel chaired patient into the path of the pursuing cops, Meld sprints through the second doorway that Nick had just seconds before broken through. "Keep running," Meld yells a head of her. The cops were slowly starting to fall behind, their week human bodies unable to keep up the pace of the two mutants but deadly bullets continued to be fired in their direction. 'Please god, don't let me get hit by any bullets' Meld silently prayed, though she didn't believe in any such being. 'Just don't let me get hit by any bullets.'

"Keep running!" With this, Nick can finally hear the gunshots and he looks around quickly, catching sight of a manhole, he leaps to it and yanks it out of the street with ease before slinging it over his back and running in to catch up to Aris. He ties the Manhole to his back to the best of his ability, trying to stay behind Aris, as the two are running, Nick hears Aris mumbling to herself quietly about not wanting to get shot. "Dont worry... You wont..." Nick smiles as he yells to her, still staying behind her. A ricochet sounds off of the manhole and another, Nick is happy he made the decision to grab it.

"These cops arent as bad at shooting as I had hoped they'd be..." The two continue running as fast as they can, Nick spots cops down the street from where they are and quickly grabs Aris' shoulder and spins her to the side. "Sorry, we have to hide from the cops..." Nick jumps into the alley that he spun Aris into and pauses a moment, not even feeling out of breath from the run. He looks up at the fire escape on the side of one of the apartment buildings the two were hiding between.

"Hey Aris, you see those..." He points to the fire escape. "You thinking what I'm thinking?.... What cop is going to be smart enough to look for someone on the roof?" He grins lightly before running over to where the fire escape is and leaping into the air, he grabs onto the bottom of the ladder and hoists himself up and gets a good grip on the ladder before climbing it and getting to the fire escape, waiting for Aris to follow him up. Once she's up, he leads the way, climbing stair after stair in an endless circle until he gets to the final platform and grabs onto the ladder leading to the roof. He quickly scrambles up the ladder and jumps to the roof before taking his duffel bag and suitcase off of his back and dropping them, as well as the manhole on said roof. He then drops down to his butt, leaning his back up against the lip/edge of the top of the building, finally allowing himself to relax. "Oh I'm gonna be sore in a couple minutes...."

Meld tenses slightly as Nick grabs her and pushes her against the wall. It had been a long time since she had run with someone she actually fully trusted. "Sorry, we have to hide from the cops..." She nodded not bothering to reply, saving her breath for running. As long and hard as she trained, she still had her limitations and unfortunately her body was still mostly flesh and blood. Hopefully they would be able to find some safety soon and be able to rest for a short while, she wasn't sure how much longer because she was going to be able to keep going at this pace.

Meld looked up at the fire escape that Nick had pointed to. Smart thinking, the cops likely wouldn't think to look to the roofs. She took stalk of the height of the first wrung of the ladder and the material of the wall the ladder was attached to. Brick. Good, she was pretty sure that she could climb a brick wall without too much difficulty. Meld nodded towards Nick. "Go. I'll follow." She watched as he easily managed to jump and catch the first wrung of the ladder, agiley making his way up to the top in a matter of moments.

It took Meld a little longer to work her way up the wall so that she could climb the ladder, having to force the clawed ends of each foot and hand into the wall to gain purchase and made more difficult by the fact that she was still hampered by one human hand. Damn, that would have to change soon. Despite the challenge, however, she managed to follow without incident or complaint. Once on the ladder it took her little time to follow her friend up to the top and onto the roof.

Meld collapsed on the roof beside Nick, taking deep, tired breaths. They would hopefully be safe up here, at least for the moment. She took the time to look over her body carefully, trying to spot any wounds. A bullet had grazed her right arm and another had grazed her left leg, just above her titanium foot. Both were bleeding but she didn't think they were serious. "I think its safe to rest here for a while," Meld said quietly, not wanting to draw any attention from those down below, "but not too long. The cops know we're mutants, or at least they know I'm a mutant. When they lose track of us they might be smart enough to think to look up here and when they do we don't want to be in the area."

Nick let out a sigh of relief, finally getting some time to rest but, that was something he didnt want mentally because he knew if he rested too long he'd be in a great deal of pain. "So... I guess I kinda know why you hate humans so much... This all started over you BEING a mutant... We did nothing wrong... We defended ourselves... And they did this to us... Turned us into fugitives... Because of what we are, not what we did..." Nick pauses a moment, hearing himself saying these words, feeling the hate in his heart. He didnt want to be like this, didnt want to hate people just for hating him or his best friend, but it didnt feel right the way they were being treated.

"Well hey, look at it this way... That hospital probably needed to be remodeled." Nick laughs lightly, thinking back a few minutes ago to when the two of the turned a peaceful hospital into a miniature warzone with just the two of them involved. "New walls, new doors, new staff... New underwear..." Nick laughs again, thinking about how many people must've pissed or crapped their pants when they were on their way out of the hospital the police had planned to be a trap. He could feel his adrenaline slowing down and he waited for it, dreading it but knowing it was happening. His body slowly became weaker and weaker as he sat there on the roof, his heart slowing down a bit.

The first sensation hits, his shoulder with the stab wound, the second, his leg from the kick, his third his other shoulder, then his head and finally his ribs. He groans lightly, trying to hold back a howl of pain, trying to keep their location hidden. He grits his teeth together tightly, letting out another groan before slumping back against the edge of the roof. "Before you say anything... Dont worry, I'll be ok... Just sore... I'm noticing that the pain hits hard right when it comes back then fades kinda fast until it's just a dull roar..." Nick lets out a slow breath, trying to deal with the pain and the tire in his entire body.

Meld nodded at everything her friend was saying to her. It saddened her a little that he had to come to grips with reality in such a direct and unforgiven manner but it didn't make that reality any less real. "Now you know the kind of world that I live in and the kinds of things that I have to deal with every single day of my life." She absently tore off another piece of her shirt and dabbed it to one of the bleeding wounds on her body while she spoke. Her tone wasn't the passionate tone it had been earlier but it was no less sure. It even held a hint of sorrow. This wasn't the kind of world she wasn't to live in, but it was the only world she had. It was the only world any of them had.

"I wish the world wasn't like this, that mutants could expect to be treated exactly the same way as humans, but it just isn't so. Many humans pretend, buts its times like these when the truth is so evident. This is what I fight for, to stop acts like these, to destroy the people who fuel such prejudice." She was finally starting to breathe properly again and moved to tending her second wound. She would have to pour some alcohol onto them to ensure they didn't become infected once she returned to Sanctuary, but that could wait a few hours. She hadn't even quite figured out how they were going to return to Sanctuary...

"Well hey, look at it this way... That hospital probably needed to be remodeled." Meld laughed at that. "Ya I guess it did. I don't think some of those poor patience will ever be the same." She grinned impishly then returned to seriousness. "There are some mutants that believe humans and mutants can live peacefully together side by side but its actions like these that prove to me that its not true. Humans will never let mutants exist as they do, they'll never let mutants have the same treatment that they enjoy. Someone needs to take a stand for mutant rights and if I don't do it who will?" The question was mostly meant to be rhetorical.

Meld could tell the moment pain returned to Nick's face and she cringed in sympathy, remembering what it felt like, all those years ago, to actually feel pain. It was just another reason for her to feel guilty about dragging him out here. She should be the one to feel pain, it was her fault that they had gotten mugged to begin with and it was her fault that the cops had chased them up here. It didn't seem fair that he should be the one to pay the consequences and she should feel nothing. She never felt anything. Always it was the people she cared about getting hurt and killed, but never her. She couldn't feel at all, except emotionally, and all she felt right now was guilt. Horrible all encompassing guilt. Why did it have to be this way? Why? "I'm sorry," she said finally, choking on the words. "I'm sorry, this is all my fault."