The long day was turning into an evening. Skies darkened as the sun set far behind the horizon, casting only a faint pink shine of a twilight at its tail. Annie and Gabrielle sat at their apartment at the Main Citadel, the former living spaces of the entire Sentinel team that they two were the last survivors of.

It was quiet in there. Darkness was setting itself in every corner of the flat. There were no one else around besides the two of them, and their memories of their lost colleagues that felt to haunt the place. The space felt haunting to Gabrielle, who used these last moments of this day to dwell in the same memories, the same moments of the same events over and over again. She couldn't let go, but she didn't mind it. She wanted to stay in them.

Annie was struggling with the plan. Margaret asked her to come up with one, and she felt like letting her down every time she made up an idea. She had the knowledge of their situation and what they were up against, but it wasn't enough to help her make a foolproof strategy for battle and survival.

Gabrielle had very little to say to help her out with the task. Not that she cared for much anyway. She tried to make herself invisible, delving deep in her mind like she had for the rest of the day. Sitting silently and motionless at the corner of the sofa, her presence was easily forgotten just like she intended.

The evening darkened and turned to night. Only a round lamp hanging from the ceiling above the table where Annie sat at lit their room. For hours Annie had been writing down notes and plotted for the plan she was supposed to come up with. Time after time she pushed the plan aside and started over, referring back to the dozen of older notes and speculating the possible outcomes of their actions. None seemed to work.

Every now and then Gabrielle dove out of her endless stream of daydreams and listened to Annie mumbling while she scribbled down something to map down their optional methods of death over and over again. It lasted only for a couple of minutes before her mind pulled her back into its depths and to the variety of memories of Toshiro. It didn't matter where she began to recollect their moments together, it always traced back to the horrific image burned down into her mind – Toshiro passing into her lap, the expression of great fear in his face as her clothes soaked from his blood. A few times a shining pearl of a tear rolled down her cheek, accompanying the unforgettable feeling of loss and hopelessness. In the darkness of their apartment she felt safe to quietly break down after the long and exhausting day of getting herself tortured.

Annie sighed deeply and crushed the piece of paper she aimlessly scratched the pen on. "Fuck it. This ain't gonna work," she complained and whipped the ball of paper across the table. "There's just no way we can repel multiple armies just by ourselves. Every version of the plan goes too close to either one or both of us dying while trying – and thus losing the battle. And that can't happen." She crossed her arms and laid back on her chair, burying into her own thoughts.

Her loud complaining made Gabrielle snap out of her thoughts. She turned to look at her and watched silently, waiting if she'd continue but she didn't. She felt the pressure of giving Annie some advices but she didn't have anything she could have recommended for her. She didn't know what to do in these kind of situations. She wasn't a leader. She wasn't a decision maker or a strategist. She followed orders, it was all she could do, she thought. She felt like a puppet. It didn't take many steps to get her to imagine the horror scenes Annie mentioned. Flying in the sky, inside a Sentinel. Suddenly a missile hitting them, blowing her into smithereens, or dropping down to ground, crushing her int tiny bits and someone shooting down to make sure she didn't survive the accident – the gory image generated by fear in her insidiously turned into a fantasy, and she didn't know where the line between the two were crossed but somehow she liked the alternative feeling. She wanted to get punished. She wanted to...

"Hello? Gabrielle?!"

She started and looked at Annie, who was staring at her with an upset look on her face. She didn't say anything. Nor did Gabrielle.

"Did you listen for a word I said?" Annie asked. Gabrielle had nothing to say. She didn't want to lie either. "Get over here," Annie pointed at the chair opposite to her.

Gabrielle got up slowly and unsurely, and with short, light steps walked to the table next to Annie and pulled out the chair and sat down. She pushed the crumbled paper balls forth to the middle of the table, looking down on the table surface the whole time. Only once she raised her eyes to give Annie a quick glance to see her facial expression and then quickly dropped her sight back down to follow the glossy reflections on the table's surface. She stuck both of her hands between her legs and tried to stay still, anxiety and sweat starting to push through her. "I'm sorry," she said with a hushed voice that had become usual to her these days.

"No. Don't be," Annie responded, which made Gabrielle a little bit surprised. She glanced her quickly, only to see her dead serious face and arms crossed so tightly that they almost dug into her body. "I know you have a lot on your mind–" she paused like she needed some time to come up with words gentle enough for Gabrielle, but then she continued like she'd skipped a whole part of their conversation. "And I know you didn't listen so– don't try suggesting otherwise."

"Okay," Gabrielle responded. She was glad that she didn't give her a lecture about being unreliable and how to be better in future because she's got off too easily until now. She felt herself puny and incompetent compared to Annie, and it made her feel ashamed and the feeling forced her to draw her eyes down to her lap. It was the thing closest to running away that she could do at that very moment, as she felt Annie staring at her the whole time.

And she did. Annie had her eyes fixed on Gabrielle, as she tried to interpret her from the  mess of mixed emotions her mind had transformed into in these past days and weeks. To her point of view, seeing her bowing down like that, it seemed like Gabrielle was scared of her. She wanted to make her feel more comfortable and welcome, but wasn't really sure how to make it happen. It wasn't her thing. She only knew her duty and means to be useful and that was what she tried to use to distract her. "So– I could use some opinions. I'm, uh– I'm out of ideas myself."

Gabrielle looked up to her. Not the whole way up to her face, but she stopped somewhere around her neck area, as a sign of acknowledgement. She said nothing.

"Could you. Help me for a bit?" Annie continued.

"Sure," she said with hesitation. She didn't know how much she'd be able to help her, but it was what Annie wanted so there she was, waiting for her to go on.

Annie leaned forward over the table, showing her an odd scribble of a drawing that Gabrielle wasn't completely sure what it was. Seemingly to her it looked like some kind of a battle map. "Alright. Ive been thinking this through a hundred times now. There's no way we can make it through it just by ourselves. There's just no way."

"Yeah," she answered. She had no opinion for the matter and couldn't come up with anything else to say. She stared intensely at the messy scribbling on the paper, not because she found it interesting, but because it distracted her from the anxiety she felt towards Annie while sitting there.

"But–" Annie continued but stopped out of hesitation. "But, what if we'd gather a new team? It wouldn't be the same as before but hey– at least it'll give us more options and a fighting chance. Right?

Gabrielle stared at the paper, motionless. Annie stared at her, waiting for an answer that Gabrielle feverishly tried to come up with. It must had been a million thoughts that went through her mind at that exact same second and to her it was all just a blur. 

"Yeah," she answered after a moment of silence, repeating like an echo in the room. Her glassy eyes were fixated to the scribbled paper the whole time and her face without an external sign of any emotion. Annie looked at her with a disbelief for her consent to her idea. She knew that Gabrielle wouldn't like the idea of a new team and because of that for a moment she hesitated to suggest it to her.

"You don't think it's a good idea?" She asked her, trying to question her answer.

"No, I– I don't know," she said with a shaking voice. Finally she let go of the paper and ran a hand through her silvery hair, straightening her poster and quickly shifting her eyes to the sealing to avoid making eye contact with Annie, who saw a sign of heavy frustration from her face in that same moment.

"Is something wrong?" She asked.

"No," she leaned to the table with her arm, holding her head straight with her hand and stared at the table surface again. "No. I'm just so tired."

"Okay. I know. You had one damn long day behind you. Maybe you should just go get some rest, would you agree?"

"Yeah. Sure," Gabrielle agreed with her and quickly stood up from the table to walk away. She felt great relief to get away finally. She turned around and without saying anything walked off towards her room door.

Annie sat looking after Gabrielle's dark figure disappearing into the shadows and through the door into her bedroom. After she heard the door closing shut, she waited a minute, staring at the dead silent corridor. It was completely quiet. All she could hear was the steady sound of her own breath. Then she grabbed her comm device and opened her mouth to whisper.

"Call Pine."

"Yes, ma'am," answered a mechanic sounding lady voice into her ear.

The line rang no more than two times, before Thomas answered.

"Annie?"

"Do you have a moment?"

*

Inside Gabrielle's bedroom it wasn't quite as dark as in the hallways behind the door. Light of a half moon shined  in through the balcony windows, illuminating the floor, the walls, the bed and herself sitting on its edge. When her eyes had adjusted to it, it wasn't so bad but it was still very dark as she refused to turn on the lights. She didn't feel like it. It brought her a sensation of comfort to embrace the darkness. It matched her mood.

Sitting still on the edge of her bed, she hoped in her mind that the room would turn even darker, to swallow her whole into its pit, so that she couldn't see anything. Herself– the room around her– the empty bed that haunted her right behind her back. She didn't want to see the empty space where Toshiro used to lie besides her every now and then. The thought of seeing nothing there scared her– agonized her soul. She was afraid it would bring her to the finalization that he was really gone from her. From this world. The thought made her stomach sink, as she made herself to turn around and look. She hoped that she would wake from a bad, sick nightmare and see his glowing, smiling face again– but she didn't. There was nothing more but an empty space on the bed next to her own.

The sinking feeling evaporated and in a way she calmed, but the memories ran through her head. The memories – all that she had left of him – of everything. She could almost still feel the warmth of Toshiro's side when they lied together on that bed, curling up to each other. Every time they had each other, Gabrielle felt herself safe from the cold and the cruel of the world. Now she was all alone in the wild and all she had was the memories of the times when everything was better. Those memories, that she feared would start to fade away from her mind until she'd finally forget everything. She couldn't bear the thought. She'd rather be dead, she thought.

She reached her hand out to touch the blanket on the other side of the bed. With all the power of her mind she tried to imagine how it was to caress the bare skin of his warm body lying beside her– but somehow she was unable to do so. It felt devastating. A rush of panic and distress bursted out of her, twisting her face to let the cry come out, wetting her face with running tears. The pressure inside her head from all the crying stopped as if she'd rushed through a barrier of emotions of some kind. Everything became cloudy and isolated. The room around her disappeared from her. There was only the bed and her and the loneliness.

She let out a couple of uncontrollable weeps, unable to stop herself from crying. Unable to do anything else but to cry violently, she dragged her hand to Toshiro's pillow and yanked it to her lap. Trying to muffle her screams she sank her face in to the pillow. It took a minute but it finally helped and calmed her down to a point where her senses began to work again, bringing her back to the empty and dark room. It must had been the lack of oxygen from trying to breath through the thick fabric that made her come back. Right then she realized there wasn't even a faint scent of Toshiro coming from the pillow that would had calmed her down and comforted her. But the feeling that the pillow gave, of having something to fill her lap, to put her arms around something and feel it against herself, had a calming effect. Never mind it was only an illusion in real, but neither were the distorted memories where Gabrielle had spent most of her time lately.

Her head was pounding and her eyes burned. She felt dead tired after that episode of emotions. She leaned to her side and let herself fall down on to the bed, holding the pillow tightly in her lap.

Crashing down to the soft bed of hers, she squeezed the pillow in her arms, watching the moon shining through a group of clouds. It was silent. No one was around in the darkness. It was the perfect opportunity to let all of her sorrow out, but nothing came as she let go of control.

She felt drained. Tired. Like she was dead, she thought.