xp_logs | Thermopylae, epilogue - In Passing Calvary

Elsewhere, MacInnis and Ruiz meet.

~*~

There's grief of want, and grief of cold,--
A sort they call 'despair,'
There's banishment from native eyes,
In sight of native air.

And though I may not guess the kind
Correctly yet to me
A piercing comfort it affords
In passing Calvary,

To note the fashions of the cross
Of those that stand alone
Still fascinated to presume
That some are like my own.
--'I Measure Every Grief', Dickinson

~*~

"Carmella."

"Colin."

MacInnis lowered himself into the chair, reminding himself that the layer of glass that separated him from the woman in the cell was bulletproof. Even if he'd been allowed to take a sidearm here into the detention facility, there'd have been no way he could have put the bullet she so rightfully deserved right between her eyes before the guards stopped him. It was a pleasant thought, though.

And besides, if he exercised a little patience, the United States government would do it for him.

... well. Possibly not with a gun. But dead would be dead, and some of the other alternatives did appeal.

"You look none the worse for wear, Colin," Ruiz said, sticking to the first-name basis. She looked unreasonably well put-together herself, orange jumpsuit and visible injuries aside. "Tell me, were you in the thick of things on the island? Or safely behind the front lines, as usual." There was a spark of... some emotion, something darker and uglier, in her level gaze. "I would hazard to guess it was the latter."

"Well," MacInnis said, managing a dry tone through a sheer act of will, "I am an old man, Carmella. I know my limitations. Best I wasn't underfoot." And it was true; he'd have been a liability out there on the field of battle on Youra. Much as part of him might have wanted to be there... "You look considerably better than I expected, I must say. But then, I doubt what you did on that island caused you to lose any sleep. Did it?" The final question came out with a bit more of a snap than he'd intended.

She merely raised an eyebrow. "No," she said, her voice perfectly even, "it didn't. My only regret is that it wasn't as effective as it should have been. The case against me would have been far less effective if none of the field operatives have survived."

"Not too many of them are in the shape to be testifying against you," MacInnis said very quietly.

Ruiz leaned forward a little, that spark back in her eyes. "Oh, but that's not entirely my fault, now, is it?" She smiled, a thin, bitter smile. "They did permit me a lawyer, Colin. They're following due process of law, such as it is when everyone knows damned well that the trial is going to be secret. He's been briefed on your 'Trojan Horse'." The smile turned almost spiteful. "Pyrrhic victory, wouldn't you say? Shattering the minds of half of those you were trying to save."

MacInnis reflected, not for the first time, that Nathan would be devastated by how it had all turned out for the second-gens. He doubted he could offer any comfort, but he would have to try and talk to him, in any case, once he made it to Xavier's. "Maybe," he said evenly. "But if you stack that up alongside the fifty-three children we took off that island... I think we won as much as we lost."

"How many of yours did you lose?" She laughed, a quick, crackling scornful noise. "I added them to the Masada program quite deliberately, you realize. All your little liberated second-gens... and Dayspring, of course. Dayspring and Morgan and Foley, your happy little triumvirate of traitors."

"Treason implies that they turned their backs on something that deserved loyalty, Ruiz," MacInnis said bluntly. "You, the other directors, Mistra in general... you don't qualify." He met those hard dark eyes unflinchingly. "Tell me about the trigger."

"Masada? What do I need to tell you? The name says it all, doesn't it?"

Masada. The last fortress of the Jewish resistance in the first century AD, where the defenders had committed mass suicide rather than surrender to the Roman troops besieging them. "We'll both agree you have a sick sense of humor, woman," he said coldly. "I want details."

"What you want is immaterial." Ruiz lifted her chin, her eyes burning as she met his. "Your precious taskforce has all the details they need to hang me by now. I see no reason to satisfy your curiosity." She shrugged. "If you're wondering why I did it, I think that should be obvious. It seemed like the best way to make my escape and ensure the trail was covered." She would have, too, if it hadn't been for the apparently invulnerable man in the football jersey.

"I figured as much." Part of him had wished it was otherwise, that she'd at least had a plan, something this... atrocity had been meant to accomplish besides simply creating chaos to cover her departure. But the more he'd turned it over in his mind, the more he'd failed to see any other possibilities.

Ruiz let her head tilt to one side, regarding him speculatively. "They were never children to me, Colin," she said, some of the harshness gone from her voice, leaving behind cool, implacable indifference. "None of them. Ever. That was your hang-up, not mine. I won't lose sleep over their deaths, and my only regret is that any of them survived."

MacInnis stared at her for a long, charged moment. "They're going to execute you, Carmella," he murmured. "They're going to execute you, and I'm going to be there to watch."

Her only reaction was a tightening of her lips. "We'll see."

"I remember you liked to argue against their basic humanity," MacInnis said almost conversationally. "The operatives, I mean. Back at the old home facility in New Mexico... do you remember the debates you used to have with some of the other directors? You were always on the one extreme. Always arguing that they were things, that giving them privileges or some semblance of a life was futile. That we needed to pack them into slightly larger white cells in the barracks and only take them off their leashes when we needed them."

Ruiz shook her head slowly. "You're a sentimental old man, Colin," she said neutrally. "You really think that we were unique? That there aren't plenty of organizations out there ready to fill the void Mistra left behind... that are doing it already?" She smiled faintly. "Mourn your 'children' all you want, you old bastard. They are and were genetic abherrations. Living weapons. If you expect me to ask for forgiveness for having picked them up and used them... keep dreaming."

MacInnis rose from his chair, slowly. Feeling a hundred years old. "Forgiveness isn't the issue, Carmella," he said, his voice a bit rough. "Neither of us are getting that."

She didn't answer. Giving him the last word? MacInnis didn't stop to wonder why, or to get one last look at the woman he didn't expect to see again. He simply turned, walking past the guard and out of the room.