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Author's Note: Takes place after/during Blah Blah Woof Woof.

***** Waiting For Silence

*****

I have always thought that caring too much always led to one's downfall.

Nice to know I'm right.

Despite all that's happened, I don't regret it. If I were given a choice, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Why?

For her.

Is it foolishness? Stupidity? Am I the so fucked up in the head that I gave it all up? My freedom?

I don't know, so many damn questions screaming for answers.

I do know that I am sitting here on my ass, next to a bastard that wouldn't even give one stinkin' hesitation of putting a bullet through my brain if I do something 'threatening.'

I wonder if she gives a damn that I gave *everything* up for her. Probably not, she wasn't made to care, none of us were. Then why the hell is she so attached to 'him'? I see nothing particularly unique about him. His idealistic nature is revolting to me because I don't understand the use of it. Idiotically trying to impact the world, how arrogant he is for thinking that he can. Yet still, she is drawn to it.

Why not me? Max and I, we are one in the same. We came from the same place, went through the same goddamn torment. *I* know what it felt like to be alone, so isolated that I actually convinced myself that it was the best way. It *is* the best way. Then why is it so tempting to touch her, to hold her? She's not purposely trying to be alluring, but it just comes so naturally. I can't help but feel *something* for her.

But that means nothing to her.

Then why? Why did I give it all up? I can't seem to find the answer, or maybe it doesn't want to come. Don't I deserve an answer?

Maybe I felt like I owed her. It was my fault. My hands were the ones that killed. I can't bear for her to take the blame and punishment for something that I did. What kind of a man would I be if I were to turn my back on one of the people I swore I would protect? I would be a goddamn coward, that's what.

That look in her eyes, I saw it as I was being pulled away. She felt guilty, but that's not what I want.

I wanted her to feel some sort of sorrow. I wanted to *know* that she would miss me, even if it's just a little. Instead, she feels guilty. I don't want that because I know that it's not her fault. It was my conscious choice. I did it for her.

I did it; I admitted to the bastard that I killed a man.

All for her.

I might as well admit it. I love her. I just don't know in what sense. Is it a brotherly love?

Or something more?

For the sake of my sanity, I pray that it's a brotherly love. I know that if I admitted to her that it could be something more, she would be sickened. I couldn't take that. I could never bear to see the anguish and barely hidden disgust in her expression.

So I'll stay what I am in her eyes. A big brother who did what was best for his little sister.

Anything else would be sick.

No matter how much I search and coax for answers to come, they don't. Maybe I'm not meant to know.

The landscape is quickly passing me by. The evergreens stand rigidly and majestically below. They seemed unaffected by the torn and beaten world around them. Simply just existing peacefully. Each tree is in its own separate solitude, free. What I would give to be amongst them, all alone and quiet.

So why not?

I don't want to go back to the Manticore hellhole.

So I won't.

I wish it were that simple, but maybe it can be. What is stopping me from breaking these ties that bind me? Nothing. I don't care about the consequences, whatever happens, happens. I'll accept them if it means that I get to be free again, away from the deafening abyss of confusion.

I run a finger over the cool metal of the cuffs that bind me. I assess the tightly wound ropes that hold my feet together and brace me to the seat of the plane. I watch the five armed men surrounding me ready to shoot a bullet through my temple if I attempt to move.

And I do it anyways.

I snap cuffs off with ease and the ropes met the same fate. The men are shouting now. In a blink of an eye, I shove one against the hard metal wall. There's shouting, cursing, and scrambling. I can't block out the noise; it's too loud. One of them points a rifle at me and I can't help but kick his midsection hard enough to break his spine.

A shot is fired. His shot.

That damn stray bullet hits the pilot, right in the back of the head; I'm too exhausted to care, probably because of the sedative that they gave me earlier. It's too loud. The plane, my head, all the ponderings, all the thoughts, the noise is incessant.

It's almost over.

The plane is going down now.

I'll just sit here and wait for the noise to stop.

I'll wait for the silence to come.

***** End