Evan Evaide waited by the door while Anyantha Whitecross entered the brig and talked to Vanz Kerrigan.
“I believed in you,” she said to him, “My sister and I, our parents died when we were little. We lost everything. We had nowhere to go. Nowhere but the Halcyon house. We grew up there. You were like us. The world threw you away and treated you like nothing. But you rose above it all. You built something great. You changed the world so that no one would have to suffer the way you did. You were a shining example of what a person could achieve. When I got older all I could think of was growing up to be like you. But I did not really believe I had that kind of greatness in me. So the next best thing I could do was do my part to help someone as great as you. The day I was hired to be your personal assistant, it was the best day of my life. It did not bother me that you were so calculating and manipulative. I knew there was a price for what you were and what you did.
“I can forgive you for what you did. You hurt me but I can forgive you for it because I know that was not really you. That was the horde inside your head making you do things. Tell me they were still in your head after that. Tell me they were controlling you when I saw you shoot Roweth in cold blood like that. Tell me they were controlling you when you left me there to chase down Zai. Tell me it was the horde that made you try to kill Zai while he was saving Janessa. Tell me something you bastard.”
Kerrigan did not answer right away. Like always he took a moment to find the right words.
“I did not know you had such high expectations of me Anyantha,” he said, “I tried to be better. I tried to be the shining example you wanted me to be. But it turns out I am just a man.”
“No,” she screamed surprising him, “you don’t get to be just a man. You put yourself out there. You chose this. You made yourself the face of the Solar Fleet. You made sure your face was there for all of us to see. Do you think I’m the only one that feels this way? There is a whole generation that looks at you as the man who saved them, the man who saved the world. Why would you do that if you didn’t want us to see you that way, if you didn’t want people to love you? You don’t get to be just a man.”
Anyantha refused to break down and sob or show how enraged and hurt she was even if her eyes were watering. Vanz Kerrigan for the first time in his life as long as he could remember did not know what to say.
“I’m sorry that I failed you,” was what came out when he opened his mouth.
Anyantha ran away from him. Evan was there for her. Kerrigan was alone again.
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