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“An-Angel?” The siren barely heard the anarchist’s distraught cry, the final wisps of life escaping from her body while frantic arms wrapped around her, bringing her face close to a jean jacket that she could faintly catch the aroma of motor oil and some kind of military issue soap before the world went black around her and everything just felt so cold.
Gaige didn’t notice when Lilith teleported her away from the core, the only thing her mind even registering was how heavy the broken body of the siren she had grown so fond of felt, the body that was still clutched to her chest. She whispered something indecipherable to anyone but herself, a desperate and irrational plea for even the craziest psycho on Pandora.
“Don’t die,” she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes while Axton tapped her on the shoulder, she gazed up to the commando, who knew what he should say, to tell Gaige that there’s going to be nothing they can do for Angel but when he stared into those massive green eyes, he found himself sighing heavily, she couldn’t dash her hopes, well, not until he was sure there was absolutely nothing they could do.
“let’s get her to Zed, we’ll see what he can do,” he gently took the limp siren, who Gaige begrudgingly gave up, knowing she had no chance to carry the woman from wherever this place was. The mechanic warned Axton to be careful while the commando half walked, half ran, with experienced ‘grace,’ grace meaning the inability to drop Angel while they barrelled out of Marcus’s store room, ignoring the endless amounts of gun chests that lined the wall, much to one of the vault hunters’ annoyance, namely Axton, who would of loved nothing more than to pillage what he could, but he didn’t want to piss off Gaige, that would be devastating to the commando.
As Axton burst through the door to Zed’s clinic he ordered Gaige to go get Patricia Tannis, setting the siren on the metal operating table while Zed threw a slew of questions at the Vault Hunter, which he ignored accordingly, but they all stopped as he checked the pulse of the siren, a faint, almost gone heartbeat, a hope.
Snapping his mask over his face, Zed ordered Axton to leave the clinic, just as Tannis had entered, already barking orders, the commando did as told, directing Gaige away from the small E.R. who began to struggle, wanting to see to that Angel was treated properly, but the commando picked her up by the hood of her jacket, dragging her away.
“put me down Ax,” she ordered, thrashing her fists at the commando, the battle-hardened soldier ignoring the blows, “I wanna make sure she’s ok!”
Axton let the redhead tire herself out, finding a slight amusement, despite their current situation, in how Gaige’s punches became nothing more than gentle taps, he then began to explain his reasoning to the Mechromancer, after setting her down on a sofa on the second floor of the Crimson Raider HQ.
“don’t you think it would be nice for Angel to wake to a Jack-free world?” Axton asked, tired gaze trying to make sense of Gaige’s features while they furrowed into thought, he also felt a pang of pride when Gaige nodded slowly after a few seconds of contemplation.
“I guess you’re right,” Gaige whispered, crumbling to logic she couldn’t disprove, but she cleared her throat, her usual energy returning, “so let’s go kill us a dictator!”
Anyway, you all know what happened, Jack dies, Gaige killed him, throwing the dying CEO into the liquid hot magma that surrounded the Vault and the Vault hunters return as heroes. Anyhow back to recovering Angel.
When Gaige materialised into Pierce Station she wasted no time in greeting the crowd that had gathered, pushing past the cheering people to run toward the red neon sign that held her irrational hopes, the hope that when she burst through the metal door she’d see Angel staring back at her, a warm smile on her face that told the mechanic that everything would be ok, like an ECHOvid she’d seen sometime ago, however things are never like they are in the movies and when Gaige burst through the door, startling the doctor who was definitely doing doctor things and not taking a nap, she saw the siren still tucked neatly into her bed, with all manners of machines and sensors hooked up to her.
While the sight disappointed Gaige, it was a hell of a lot better than seeing an empty bed with a disgruntled Zed, and that dreaded shake of the head- no. Gaige won’t let that thought consume her, things will turn out for the best, so shaking her head free of such accursed things and moved over to (almost) sit in a chair near the doctor who was getting up and doing a basic physical exam on the siren.
“how’s she doing Doc?” Gaige asked eagerly, practically off her seat in excitement for a possible date of when the siren would be up and about, when she could actually talk to the woman face to face.
“well she’s alive,” Zed replied, looking at a clipboard emboldened with Tannis’s frantic scribbles, “and according to this, I think she’ll be fine, weak at first, but that’ll pass, but she should be wakin’ up soon and you’ll be the first to know, if you ain't here already.”
Gaige milled the idea of waiting for that glorious moment when those blue eyes would flutter open and Angel would be back in the land of the conscious and free from the clutches of Jack’s tyranny and in Gaige’s arms, well if things go well that is, but she decided that their would be a lot of chaos, a lot of Anarchy one might say, in Hyperion operated Pandora and she’d be a fool to miss that. However, if she was being honest with herself, she just wanted to take her mind off what could turn out to be the worst case scenario.
Zed’s prediction was right and, in a few days, Angel awoke to a type of bright florescent lights she’d actually be happy to see, a type that wasn’t in her guiled cage. Her entire body felt heavy, it was so much of an effort just to lift her arms to try and articulate herself but any attempts to move was stopped when she looked about the small clinic and only then did she notice the dumbfounded Mechromancer who stood there slack jawed, barely able to believe that the siren had actually woken up, so Angel broke the silence.
“hello,” she said hoarsely, a warm smile on her face which quickly turned to a grimace of pain when Gaige enveloped the siren in a tight hug, already forgetting how the dark-haired woman had just came from the brink of death, but the whisper in her ear made up for it, a whisper that Angel would never forget.
“you’re safe.”