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It’s been two months since Angel’s seen Jack. Jack doesn’t know that Angel knows this. And frankly, Angel’s happier this way.
Timothy sits opposite her, now, cross-legged at the foot of the bed while she sits at the head. A Bunkers & Badasses board lays between them — a tradition that started when he visited five months before, found out she’d never played it and vowed solemnly to bring the game to every meeting he had with her. Normally, it’s entertaining. Normally, she loves it; playing a board game with an actual friend is something she hasn’t done since before her mother died. But today, the mood is different.
“Something you wanna talk about?” the doppelganger asks gently as Angel loses focus on the game for the third time. The Control Core feels colder than usual, today, and she shivers, exhaling quietly and shaking her head. The siren moves to pick up the die, but Tim catches her reaching hand with his own. “Angel.”
She pulls her hand back from his loose grip. “I’m fine,” Angel replies shortly, pushing her fringe out of her eyes. “Just haven’t slept much. I — I’m fine.”
No, he thinks to himself, gaze drifting up to the large purple pipes above their heads. No, you’re not. Angel never talks to him about the eridium, what it does to her, why she can never take the injectors off. All he knows is Jack is fueling her to charge the Vault Key. He knows the eridium can’t be good for her, that it must be hurting her in some way, but every time he asks, she brushes him off and changes the subject. Tim doesn’t like that — he knows he’s the only person Angel can talk to.
Besides, he knows a thing or two about Jack ruining people’s bodies to get the results he needs. The discarded mask and the scar marring his features give testimony to this.
A blue eye and a clouded, white eye focus back on the frail girl opposite him, silently willing her to say something as she reaches for the die on the board to roll it. She shakes it in her hand. She goes to drop it. Her hand hovers in the air, above the board, for a long moment.
But instead of letting go of the die, she then slumps back against her pillow, pressing her hands to her face. A muffled sob escapes them.
“Oh — oh, jeez,” mumbles Tim, and he nudges the board game aside on the bed to crawl up and sit directly in front of her. “Angel? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to —”
“No,” she interrupts, voice thick. “No, I — it’s not your fault, I just…” A shuddering breath is exhaled, and she seems to press her fists into her face hard before lowering them. She swallows, and Tim hears her throat click. “Remember those, uh, those Vault Hunters I told you about? The ones that teamed up with Sanctuary.”
A humourless smile is quirked, Tim knowing well from the endless rants Jack has gone on about the ‘bandit sons of bitches’ running around on Pandora. Tim himself has had to say those speeches a couple of times. “The ones trying to get the Key. Uh, your Key.” Glancing to the side as if he expects the object to digistruct before them right there, Tim rubs his hand across the back of his neck awkwardly. “Yeah, I remember.”
Angel nods, unspeaking. “Tomorrow,” she clarifies tonelessly, “Jack will win. And I… I’m the one that has to kill them.”
“Shit,” Timothy breathes. Then, again, “Shit. He can’t ask you to —”
“He has, and I have to.” Her voice still sounds monotonous. Tim’s about to ask what Jack’s plan is, opening his mouth to pose the question, but she cuts in before he can start as though she read his mind. “I can’t tell you any more,” she continues unhappily. “You already know too much. If Jack finds out I told you…” She trails off, bringing her knees to her chest and hugging them.
Hesitantly, Timothy replies, “You can trust me.”
“You won’t want to know.”
“Yes. Yes, I will — I do.” He doesn’t know what could hurt him so much, if Jack planned to attack Sanctuary. Sure, he knew people there — good people — those like Moxxi, and it tugs at his heartstrings even all these years later to think of her being bombed into the ground. But he chose his side, and the residents of Sanctuary chose theirs. He can deal with it.
So when Angel starts, apologetically, by saying, “Jack will poison Wilhelm,” he is entirely unprepared for his stomach to drop in horror.
“Wilhelm?” he asks, hissing between clenched teeth. “No. Jack wouldn’t — he’s his best soldier!” And my friend, he doesn’t add. There’s no reason to keep it secret, though. Angel already knows.
Which is why she doesn’t answer his outburst, but only says, “I’m sorry, Tim.”
He shakes his head at that, because accepting her apology means accepting Wilhelm’s going to die. Still, with fingers curled into fists, he asks quietly, “What’s his plan?”
Tim knows he could never try to stop Jack. He knows he isn’t brave enough. But he still needs to know what will happen — for Wilhelm’s sake, and for Angel’s sake.
“He won’t be killed by the poison, just… weakened. The Vault Hunters believe the Vault Key is on the train, but instead Wilhelm will be, equipped with a modified Hyperion power core that I can personally hack into. Wilhelm will put up a good fight, but… the Vault Hunter will kill him, according to Jack, which makes it seem like the power core wasn’t planted as a trap.” Angel sighs heavily, pausing before she carries on. “I tell the Vault Hunters that they can use the false power core to boost Sanctuary’s shield, so they take it back to Sanctuary. When they plug it in, I hack the power core and thus the defense systems, lowering the shield and… Jack can moonshot the city.”
Tim hates to admit that it’s a clever plan. He hates that Wilhelm’s a part of it. He hates that tomorrow, Jack will have complete control of Pandora.
Most of all, he hates that Angel will be the one with blood on her hands at the end of it all. And he hates Jack for ever involving her in this war.
“They’re trusting me to protect them,” she whispers, arms still curled round her knees. “Jack’s trusting me to kill them.”
“You’re not killing anyone,” replies Tim, but he doesn’t sound convincing even to himself. He’s not sure if he believes himself. “It’s not your fault Jack dragged you into this, okay?”
She doesn’t reply.
The silence in the room lasts a long time, Timothy and Angel both reflecting internally. Tim asks himself questions that he doesn’t have answers to — could he have known Jack was about to win the war? Could he have ever saved Angel from having to do this? Does he even want Jack to control Pandora?
Evidently, Angel’s train of thought was similar, as the next thing she says to shatter the quiet is, “Jack is a bad person, Tim. Whether we like it or not, he’s — I mean, look at us. He branded you. He’s pumped me full of eridium to the point where I’d die if the injectors stopped.”
“You’d what?”
“Everything he touches,” she continues, eyes shimmering as she looks back up at her only friend, “gets broken. And if Sanctuary is the only thing stopping him from owning Pandora, then… Sanctuary’s the only thing stopping Pandora from being broken, too.”
“Angel,” Tim cuts in, voice sharper. He sounds, to his dismay, like Jack. “What did you just say? About the injectors?”
Her eyes widen. Clearly she hadn’t intended to let so much information slip. “I —” she stutters, mouth open and voiceless for several seconds as she figures out what to say. After a long moment, her shoulders slump again. “The eridium’s been in my body for too long, now.” Her voice is quieter. “Without a constant supply, I’d die. It’s been that way for… months. Perhaps years, by now.”
Timothy knows Angel is an adult. But seeing her there, curled up in a ball on her bed, face streaked with tears, so breakable and so afraid, he can’t help but see her as a child. A lost, lonely, neglected child. “It’s okay, you don’t have to worry about me,” she tells him, but her voice cracks on the words.
Slowly, carefully, as though he were trying not to spook her, Tim pushes off the bed and kneels in front of where Angel is sat. She turns to face him, legs moving from bent at her chest to touching the floor. Tim steadies himself with a hand on her knee. “You have to follow Jack’s orders,” he instructs, his own voice cracking too. There’s been too much news, all at once — Wilhelm’s death, Jack’s victory, Angel’s eridium dependence — and he feels his own breakdown around the corner. “You can’t put yourself at more risk than you’re already in.”
Avoiding his eyes, she pauses, and then nods heavily. “This plan… Jack’s plan… it’s been in his head since I first met you.” She glances up. “Remember? The files you took? They were on the Vault Hunters I was finding to put on the train.” Tim doesn’t know how he can respond to that, but Angel apparently doesn’t expect him to. Her next words are even quieter, but following a rough wipe at her eyes, she mumbles, “You should probably go. I — I have a big day tomorrow, I guess.”
He nods wordlessly, getting to his feet and straightening the ridiculously long shirt out to where it reaches his knees. He then picks up the mask, preparing himself for discomfort as he reattaches it to his face. “I’ll be back here as soon as I can,” the body double says. “You stay safe, okay?” Turning back to Angel and lifting his fingers in a small wave, Tim hesitates before he moves to leave.
“I’ll try,” the forlorn voice behind him answers. Despite the internal struggle, Tim refuses to look back at her, swallowing uncomfortably and heading for the exit.
He’s afraid that if he does look back, he may not have the strength to leave at all.