Topic: Whatever Has To Be Done

Champion of Few

Date: 2012-09-03 14:25 EST
"You did it again, didn't you?"

The cowboy had just been stepping out of the O"Connor household, his hat drawn off his head and a calloused hand running back through the grubby mess of dark hair. He hadn't even gained more than a foot outside the front door before he heard the voice and he scowled. Turning his head to look at the man, his facial expression didn't change.

"I did what I had to do, Jonas. You know that."

"Did you?" the other man asked, a blond brow arching. "I wonder." He pushed himself from out of the lean he had against the side of the house and moved toward the edge of the porch. He didn't dismount though, instead choosing to turn toward the cowboy at the last minute, his hands sliding down into his jean pockets. "Do you even think that you had the right?" Either time, he added, silently.

Sai's scowl grew deeper, placing his hat back on his head with a heavy thunk. "I did what I had to do and that's it. What, you think I like takin" away her memories?" His face remained screwed up as he, too, took a few steps toward the porch's end, away from the door. "It's not that I get to pick and choose, you know. Everythin" has the chance of bein" affected. Even the parts of me."

"And those are the parts that matter most, don't they?"

The cowboy looked up sharp, eyes that were too blue finding their match and then some. Even though it hurt, he didn't look away. "I don't like messin" around in her head any more than you do, but you know how she's been. There ain't no other way it could have been done." He jabbed a finger back toward the house. "If we had left little Kingsley like that, she would"a died. Or, worse yet, she would"a become somethin" that none of us wanted to see." The Gunslinger thinking that some sort of change would have been worse than the Astral's death? It must have really been something bad.

But it didn't phase the other man one bit. Snorting air through his nose, he looked away from Sai and out across the front lawn. "Do you know what it's like, losing every piece of you inside of her mind?" It was said strangely, with more than a simple hint of remorse in its tone, but he was speaking for his own benefit more than that of Toby's, for sure. Still, the similarity was plain to see.

The mere mention of the boy, even when lacking his name, brought a bristling of hairs up along the back of the cowboy's neck and down his arms. "It don't matter what it feels like to him, or to you. It was the only way to bring Kingsley back from a brink that she ain't ready to look down from, and I don't want to ever have to let her either. She don't deserve it," he said, again pointing a finger at the house, "and just because that boy played with her heart don't mean that she should have to suffer for it. He's dead, for Christ's sake!" Poor choice of words there, Sai. He didn't care. "And yet he's still managin" to bring her down to levels I ain't ever seen her in." He paused then shook his head, letting out a defeated sigh. "Look, I don't think that she's not goin" to remember you. Not this time "round."

Jonas looked from the lawn and back over at the Gunslinger, eyes filled with no small amount of surprise. "You kept me?" In her memories, he meant. His shock was clear but warranted. The last time he hadn't been so lucky.

"Yeah," the Gunslinger said, rubbing a hand over his dirty face and down a chin and throat lined with too much stubble. "I did. As much as I was able to, anyway. Wasn't easy." He cut a hard line over at the other man, taking the last few steps to the porch's lip. "But I did it."

Jonas didn't know what there was to say. He simply looked at the man who looked like he was plucked right out of a Clint Eastwood Western movie and plunked unceremoniously right in the smack-dab middle of Rhydin, all to take care of a little girl—no, a young woman who didn't even know half of what she was. Eventually, though, he nodded. "Thank you." It was about all he could manage.

"Don't mention it," Sai said, stepping down off the porch. He paused at its base, half-glancing back over one shoulder. "She should be wakin" up in a few hours. Just make sure that she's alright." And then he was walking down the path and through the gate, not stopping a second time as he made his way away from the house. As much as he wanted to stay behind and check on little Kingsley himself, he feared that this time around the other man might be the better choice for the job and he wasn't sure that with all he had just been through that he was ready for that blow just yet.