Tifa's days hadn't been good lately, but her nights had been worse. Ordinarily she liked the night, it was a time to relax, a time to get away from all her troubles, the one time when she could forget, at least for a little while, the burdens that life hung upon her during the day. There were times when curling up in bed with a book followed by a good night's sleep had been the only thing that kept her going.
Not anymore. She used to look forward to a good night's sleep but now, now that state seemed to be practically unobtainable. She didn't think she had slept more than a handful of hours in the days since Reno had died.
Even when she did fall asleep, her rest was plagued by bad dreams. Tonight was no different. She had finally fallen asleep, but she wasn't getting much rest. It wasn't always the same dream. Sometimes she was running, she didn't know from where, or where she was going. She didn't know what or who was chasing her. She couldn't make out any individual objects. The world was a blur, she wasn't sure whether because of the darkness around her or because of some nebulous dream rules. All she knew was she had to get away but now matter where she ran or how fast, her pursuer relentlessly seemed to be catching up. Sometimes it wasn't even her running, sometimes it was Reno, or sometimes it was some indeterminate person. Whoever it was, she could feel their fear, feel their helplessness.
Other times she was just waiting, standing there, or sitting in a room, or lying in her bed. The room was always bare, except for the chair or the bed. It contained no other furniture. Nothing was happening, nothing at all but she knew, she knew someone was there, someone was coming for her. She wanted to get up, she wanted to fight, or to run, but for some reason her limbs would not obey her. No matter how much her mind screamed for her to move, to run, she couldn't. And so she just remained there, remained there in the dark, waiting inevitably for the end, without even lifting a finger to save herself. Those were the worst, the ones where she knew someone was there, there in the room with her, standing in the dark, and there wasn't anything she could do about it.
Tonight's was like that. She was lying in bed, and someone was there. She could see a shrouded figure in the darkness, even though her eyes were closed. She could see him, could feel his breath upon her, could smell the odor of death, could taste blood in her mouth.
Her own blood.
Sometimes the dream was surreal, no sharp images, no real people, just blurs in the darkness, other times, well, other times it was difficult to tell if she was dreaming at all.
This was one of those times.
She was in bed. Her eyes were tightly shut. She could feel the faint rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, the sound of it as she exhaled onto her pillow. She could hear no other sound, yet even so, in spite of that, she knew with certainty that someone was in the room with her.
How often had she dreamed this? As a child she had imagined it many times, her young mind given to flights of fantasy. Waking up in the middle of the night, thinking someone was there, watching her. In those days her remedies for the situation had been just as imaginative. If you didn't move they wouldn't notice you were there. If you laid perfectly still. If you kept your hands and feet under the blankets. If you didn't open your eyes, if you didn't acknowledge their existence, then they didn't exist. Even as an adult her brain still entertained such foolish notions at times.
Those flights of imagination had left her wondering what she would do if she ever was really put in such a situation. Lying in bed, you were helpless. The intruder had the drop on you. Open your eyes, stare them down, or leap out of bed suddenly, trying to take them by surprise.
She had never actually tried the latter approach. She would have felt like a fool to do something like that only to find herself alone in the room, as she inevitably did once she gathered enough courage to actually open her eyes and look.
It was always the same. She didn't hear any sound, or see anything. None of her senses gave away the fact that someone was there, she just knew. Perhaps it was something the intruder had done to wake her up, some slight noise, a disturbance in the air, a foreign odor that had pulled her from her sleep, but she could not detect it once she was awake. There was no way to know someone was there except for just the feeling.
She had dreamed this dream a hundred times throughout her life and yet the feeling still made her skin crawl.
The particulars had varied. Sometimes she opened her eyes to see an outline in the darkness. Sometimes the creaking of a floorboard had given it away. Sometimes it had been the feel of something touching her, or sometimes it had been, like now, the ghostly whisper of a voice.
"Tifa..."
Tifa's blood congealed in her veins. She found her heart thudding suddenly in her chest. The sound had been the hum or a refrigerator, or a fly's wings, a sound that ordinarily was so soft as to be lost in the background, a sound you weren't even sure you heard even as you heard it.
This wasn't a dream. She really was lying in bed, her eyes tightly shut, yet she could feel panic gripping her like a glove. This was real.
Wasn't it?
She remained still, finding herself concentrating totally on listening, her whole being trained on that one sense. Her heart was still thudding in her chest, beating so hard she could almost hear it. If there was any other sound, she was afraid that would drown it out.
Had what she had heard been part of a dream? Had the disturbance the dream had caused been enough to wake her up? That had to be it, didn't it? She had dreamed she had heard it and now she awake thinking she had heard it for real. There was no one there. There never was. She would open her eyes and she would be alone in the room, just as she always was.
And then something touched her leg.
She opened her eyes and in spite of the fact that she had been certain someone was there, in spite of the fact that she knew this wasn't a dream now and that Drax was after her, she nearly choked trying to hold back the scream that tried desperately to emanate from her lips when she saw the figure standing over her bed in the darkness.
"Tifa. It is time to wake up and play."
The man's voice was soft, still barely more than a whisper, calm, almost contemplative, and there was no mistaking it for a dream anymore.
She didn't reply. She couldn't. Her voice was caught in her throat, even if she had had an appropriate reply, which she did not.
Light filtered in through the window, the neon sign of the bowling alley across the street giving the room a faint reddish glow. Her eyes were well adjusted to it and she could see Drax plainly, so plainly she could make out the expression on his face, the look in his eyes. It was the hungry look of a wolf standing over it's prey. No, not a wolf, more like a vulture. It was a look that sent shivers down her spine.
Drax had his sword in his hand, hovering over her, well within range to strike. He could have killed her easily, at any time, before she had even known he was here. Now the sword lowered slightly, hovering just over the blanket that covered her legs. He inched it forward until she felt the press of the cold steel against her thigh.
"Where is your daughter?"
Tifa was wide awake now, the last vestiges of sleep driven from her. Her heart still thudded in her chest, but the paralyzing fear she had felt when she first opened her eyes had faded, faded enough for her to find her voice.
It was obvious he had already looked in Karisa's room, looked there and found it empty. She spoke as quietly as he did, and though she could feel the fear like a cold hand caressing her, her voice did not waver.
"Someplace safe."
For a moment Drax did not respond to this, then suddenly his blade forced itself forward once more, the tip easily penetrating the blanket and her soft flesh beneath.
Tifa gritted her teeth and somehow managed to stifle the cry of pain that tried to escape her lips. Nor did she jerk her leg away as every impulse was telling her to do. Instinctively she knew this was a test, that he was merely probing her defenses to see how she would react. If he was going to kill her, he wouldn't strike her leg.
The blade withdrew. It hadn't penetrated very far, leaving only a small cut. A flesh wound. Again Tifa resisted her natural instincts and did not clamp her hand down on the wound. Instead she just lay there, staring at Drax.
A dark stain appeared on the blanket and slowly started to spread.
Drax looked at her for a moment, then he smiled.
"I heard you were a strong willed woman," he said. "It appears the reports were true. I could do some very nasty things to you, but somehow I doubt it would get you to reveal the whereabouts of your daughter."
Tifa made no reply. There didn't seem to be any need for a response.
Drax lifted the blade, and Tifa could see that the tip of it as well was stained with blood. Drax brought the tip up to his lips and ran his tongue along the end of it. He turned toward her again, his eyes looking into her, the smile on his face widening.
"Though that doesn't mean I won't do nasty things to you anyway."
Again Tifa made no reply. He was still staring straight at her, straight into her eyes, as if he were looking for something there. She knew what he was looking for, and was determined not to give in to it.
"I won't insult you by telling you I'll let you go if you tell me where your daughter is. I don't think you would do that even if you believed me, which you won't of course," Drax commented. "Rightfully so. I'm here to kill you. You're not going to survive the night no matter what you tell me, or what you do."
His left hand inched down until it touched the blanket at the foot of her bed. Slowly his hand closed, the blanket clenched within it. He gave it a little tug, pulling the blanket down, just a bit. Tifa's first instinct was the grab her end of the blanket, to hold it fast against his pull, but she did not to that. She had a feeling that was exactly what he expected her to do, that he had tugged on the blanket just to see what her reaction would be, and she was determined not to give in to his expectations.
After a moments hesitation, he pulled again, and she could feel the blanket sliding down once more, until it was off of her completely and fell onto the floor. The heat was on, of course, but even so the cold crept in. She had been warm under her blanket, her body used to the protection the cover had afforded her. She was wearing only a t shirt and panties, and now she had to resist the urge to shiver. The blanket of course, could not protect her from the man's blade, but it's cover had provided her with at least some psychological comfort. To strip it away was like stripping away her defenses, leaving her feeling cold and exposed, not only in the literal sense but figuratively as well.
"Your daughter is going to die," Drax continued, his voice as cold as the air outside. "You can't hide her from me. I can find out anything about you, all your relatives, all your friends. I'll find her with or without your help. You may think it doesn't matter what I do to you. You're going to die in the end anyway, right? You might think I can't do any worse than kill you, that it doesn't matter how you die, but let me assure you, you would be very wrong."
Drax's blade lowered again, until the flat of it touched Tifa's leg once more. He didn't cut her this time, instead ran the blade slowly up her leg, like some kind of chilling caress. He stopped when he reached her injury, the blade lingering there, as if the wound held some perverse attraction to him. Finally he moved the blade up higher, smearing her blood along her thigh.
"Tell me where your daughter is and I will kill you quickly," he said. "If not... if not I will make sure that you linger for hours. There are worse things than death, much worse."
"And don't forget," he added, his eyes pinning her. "You're not in this alone. When I find your daughter, and I will find her, you can be sure she will suffer through exactly what you are going to go through. You can make it easy for her, or... otherwise. The choice is yours."
His blade suddenly dug into her leg again, once more drawing blood and this time she jerked back before she could even think about it, a hiss of breath escaping her lips. She pulled herself up, away from him, until her back rested against the head of her bed, as if trying to escape him as best she could. A futile maneuver really, she knew, but she couldn't help herself.
"Go to hell," she whispered a moment later, the pain in her eyes quickly replaced by defiance. No matter what happened, she wasn't going to give in to him, knowing full well that was exactly what he wanted.
He chuckled at that. She had never heard laughter so devoid of humor.
"You've got spirit, I'll give you that," he told her. "Good, we do it the hard way then. I was hoping you would choose this path."
He stepped closer, his sword once more poised just above her.
"Perhaps you still have some hope," he continued, his sword hovering over her; "Perhaps you are thinking that I will make a mistake. That I will let down my guard for just a moment and then you can strike. I know who you are, and I know you are trained to use your fists. Even so my sword puts you at a disadvantage. Do you think that you have a chance against me?"
He spoke as if in idle conversation, as if they were two old friends who happened to have crossed paths on the street. Yet even so she could feel the menace in his voice. He had the upper hand, and he knew it. It was a position he was used to being in.
Still Tifa did not reply. He was standing close, but not, she noticed, close enough. She could reach out, strike the sword away, and against someone who was unprepared that might be enough. There was a chance such a blow would knock the sword out of the man's hand, giving her the precious seconds she would need to get on her feet, to even the odds. If he wasn't ready, but she didn't think that applied to Drax. He wouldn't be caught by such a simple ploy. If the man held onto the sword, it would be a simple matter to impale her before she could get out of the bed. The odds were slim that such a maneuver would work, as she was sure Drax was well aware.
"Or perhaps," Drax went on, "you are thinking that you are not alone in this battle. Perhaps you are thinking that your friend Rude will come to your aid. You might even have worked something out with him, had him looking out for you. Perhaps you think he might burst in through the door at any moment."
The whole time he had been here, since she had woken up, he hadn't taken his eyes off of hers. Even now they stared at her, watching and waiting, waiting to see her will break.
"Don't pin your hopes on a dead man," Drax warned.
Tifa stared back, as best she could. She thought her expression did not change at those words, but it must have, for she saw the look of satisfaction come over Drax's face.
"Yes, he's dead. I killed him earlier. Ran him through, then threw him through a window. Sorry to say but you'll be getting no assistance from him."
For a moment, Tifa's resolve really did falter. Could it be true? Was Rude dead also? Was she the only one left? Drax had already taken out one Turk, so it wasn't beyond belief he could kill another. She had lost so many friends, so many people she knew. When was it ever going to stop? For a moment she felt panic and despair begin to well up inside her.
With an effort she forced those thoughts out of her head. This was not the time to dwell on that. It wasn't going to help her in her present situation. She had no reason to believe Drax. He could very well be lying, saying this just to try to get her in the state of panic she had been heading for just a moment ago. He was her enemy and was trying his best to scare her. She had no reason to believe anything he told her.
"I don't believe you," she said softly, though her voice sounded weak even to her.
Once again Drax's humorless laughter filled the room. She was starting to hate the sound of that.
"Believe what you wish. You will find out soon enough that no one is going to come, no one is going to rescue you. You are all alone girl, all alone with the wolf. If you don't believe it now, you will believe it soon enough."
The sword swung, suddenly, flashing right in front of Tifa's eyes. Reflexively her head jerked back, to smack against the headboard behind her. Once more a hiss of breath escaped her lips. In spite of all her attempts to show no fear he was getting to her, knew just what to do.
Something soft brushed against her face. She looked down to see a lock of her hair settle upon the white of her t shirt.
"You know, I used to work in a slaughterhouse," Drax's words drifted to her. "When I was fifteen, my first job. That was before I ran away and joined a gang. Me and my friends used to play a little game there. We used to see how long we could keep the animals alive after we cut them open. It was a lot of fun. I learned a lot too. You'd be amazed at how much damage you can do to something, or someone, without killing them, at least, not right away. I've been practicing that skill ever since. I get better every time. I'm going to cut you open, Tifa, I'm going to gut you like a pig. I'm going to give you a little anatomy lesson. I'm going to cut you open and point out a few of your internal organs, your liver, kidneys. You can even hold them if you wish. It will take you hours to die. You'll have plenty of time to absorb all the information you'll be learning. And you can try and fight me, oh yes you can. I'll be perfectly happy to cut your arms and legs too, cut the tendons, leave them hanging useless. If that's the way you want to do it, I don't mind at all. Just remember, you can end it all, you can make it quick anytime you wish. All you have to do is tell me where your daughter is, that is, if you are able to stop screaming long enough to say. You can do that, you can put an end to it anytime you want, but I hope you don't. I really hope you don't, because it will be so much more fun the other way."
She had been warned. Both Reno and Rude had told her how brutal Drax could be. She also knew that Drax's intent was to scare the shit out of her. Knowing that, she had told herself she would just brush off anything he told her but now that it was actually happening she was finding that impossible to do. Yes, he was trying to scare her, but she also knew that what he was saying was quite possibly true, or close enough to the truth. She had never heard anyone talk like this about another human being, had a difficult time comprehending that someone could be so vicious, so inhumane. She had thought Reno heartless at times, but nothing he had done could compare to what this man was now telling her.
"Now turn over on your back and put your hands behind you," Drax commanded. "We've got a lot to do before you finally say goodbye."
Drax had killed a lot of people. One hundred and seventeen to be precise. He took great pride in that fact that he remembered each and every one of them. The vast majority he had told they were going to die, going to die and there was nothing they could do about it. The funny thing was though, of all the people he had told, even though they knew they were going to die, only a handful had fought back. Once he got the drop on them most had meekly obeyed his commands, even though they were well aware he was going to kill them. He wasn't sure why. He didn't understand it himself, but that's the way it was. Most people, he supposed, just didn't believe it was actually going to happen.
But they were wrong.
People were sheep. That was the only explanation. Too stupid to believe what was happening to them, that it was really over. The one's that didn't fight back, he had no respect for them at all, they didn't deserve to live anyway.
Tifa, her eyes downcast now, slowly turned to her side. As she did so her right hand, concealed from his view, slid under her pillow. When it came into view again it was not empty.
It couldn't be!
That was the thought that came to Drax, the only thought he had time for. He didn't have time for his eyes to widen, his jaw to drop, nor, most importantly, his sword to thrust forward, in the split second before the air was rent by the sound of thunder.
The bullet tore into Drax's abdomen with the weight of an anvil, knocking him backwards. Tifa's arm wasn't quite straight when she fired, wanting to get the shot off as quickly as possible, before Drax could react. As a result the kick of the recoil nearly made her lose her grip on the gun. Nearly but not quite. She straightened her arm, firing again and again. The bullets slammed into Drax in rapid succssion, hitting first his abdomen, then his chest, tearing through him, leaving rents in his body that he could not possibly survive. He stumbled backwards, the bullets slamming into him until he hit the wall behind him. Tifa kept firing for what seemed like a lifetime, kept pulling the trigger like some kind of automation, until finally the click of the gun told her it was empty.
And then, suddenly, silence.
Drax was still standing, but that was only because of the support of the wall. He stood there, his arms splayed out against the wall as well, his sword having fallen from his nerveless fingers. He stood there for what seemed like an interminable amount of time, not moving, not saying a word. She lifted her head, looking into his eyes, staring at his eyes once more. She no longer saw the look of the wolf in those eyes, no longer the predator. Shock and surprise, that was what she saw there, and then, just before the life faded out of them, a small flicker of something else.
Defeat.
With agonizing slowness, Drax's body slid slowly down the wall to fall in a heap on the floor. Tifa remained still for a long time before finally lowering the gun. After the roar of the weapon, the silence seemed deafening. She slid her legs around until her feet touched the cold floor, then stood up. The gun still in her hand, she looked down at the body in front of her.
"Goodbye," she whispered.
"You took an awful chance."
Tifa sat in a chair by the window of the hospital room, looking out. It was late afternoon. The sun was shining brightly. The room was on the fourth floor of Junon General, one floor above where Karisa had stayed. She could see the a row of storefronts that lined the street below, then the seawall and the ocean beyond that, stretching as far as she could see into the distance. It was quite a view.
"Perhaps," she said, turning her head to look back into the room, and the bed that Rude sat propped up in. Bandages covered his head, as well as quite a bit of the rest of his body. He had a concussion and both his right wrist and left femur were broken. He had numerous cuts on his body from the glass of the window, some of them quite deep, as well as the sword wound to his right arm that Drax had given him, but the doctors had told her he would recover. She had just finished recounting to him what has happened last night.
"He could have killed you in your sleep," Rude continued.
Tifa nodded.
"He could have, but you and I both knew that he wouldn't. You had told me yourself he would want to look in my eyes before he killed me. He couldn't do that if I was sleeping."
"I told you that was how he used to operate," Rude responded. "That was a long time ago and I wasn't sure if it still applied. I didn't expect you to stake your life on it."
Tifa nodded slowly, then looked down at the floor.
"It wasn't like I had much choice."
It had been a gamble, of course, but then again, wasn't that true of just about any battle she had ever been in? No fight was ever a sure thing, or so it seemed. She hadn't had many options.
Drax had known everything about her, knew she was a martial arts expert, that she fought with her fists. She had been counting on Drax knowing that, and him assuming she would think she could beat him with her fists alone. She was good, but she knew Drax was too, and realistically she knew she had no chance against an expert swordsman using only her fists. She was by no means an expert with a gun, having hardly used one her whole life. Fortunately she hadn't had to be an expert. Drax had been standing so close to her that even a neophyte gunslinger could hardly have missed. The gun Rude had given her when she had asked to borrow one had been one of his heaviest caliber handguns, a manstopper. If she hit Drax at all, he was going to go down.
"I put your gun back in your apartment," she spoke up. "Obviously the hospital staff would frown on me bringing it here. Thank you for letting me borrow it."
"It was my pleasure," Rude replied. "I wanted to kill Drax. There's no sense in hiding that. I wanted to do that, for Reno. If I couldn't get him, Reno would be happy to know that at least... at least my gun did."
Tifa nodded. Drax was dead. She had gotten revenge for Reno but she felt little sense of victory. Reno was gone and Drax's death wasn't going to bring him back. No amount of revenge could make up for that loss.
"There is one thing I don't understand though," Rude went on.
"What's that?"
"Why did you wait so long to shoot him?" Rude asked. "You had the gun from the very beginning. Here he was standing over you with this sword, a sword he could have killed you with at any time, and you had this conversation with him. Why didn't you just shoot him as soon as you woke up?"
Tifa shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She had been wondering about that herself. She realized what she had done was very dangerous. Drax had been perfectly capable of killing her, killing her in ways more horrible than she could imagine. The things he had said to her... well, even now it made her shudder just thinking about it. She knew people like that existed in the world. She had seen her share of evil. Sephiroth, President Shinra, Hojo, none of them had been saints. Hojo had made her skin crawl but even he had not had the effect on her that Drax had. Perhaps because she had never been in quite as intimate a setting with Hojo. The scientist, after all, had never invaded her bedroom. In spite of the gun, and the fact that she had been warned about him, Drax had scared her to death. She knew that once she pulled the gun out she was committed. She knew he was an expert with his sword. She knew a moments hesitation on her part would have meant the end. A million things could have gone wrong. She could have missed, the gun might have misfired. If that had happened it would have been all over for her, all Drax's vicious predictions would have come true and there would have been nothing she could do about it. She knew that the slightest slip up and she was dead.
Fear was a strong motivator. The fact that something could go wrong, was that what had held her back? Was that why she had waited so long?
"I didn't fire right away because..." she began.
It made sense, but that wasn't all there was to it. Fear might have played a part but there was something else too. Tifa didn't believe in revenge. She had always thought that thirst for revenge was something base, something that dragged you down, that usually ended up hurting you more than anything else. She had told herself she wasn't killing Drax for Reno, she was doing it because, well, because he was going to kill her if she didn't but beyond that, a man without morals like that was a danger to everyone. If someone didn't stop him he would have just kept on killing.
There was no doubt in her mind she had done the world a favor by getting rid of Drax. She wanted to think she got rid of him because he was a danger to every other human being that lived and that was true. Deep down inside though, she knew that wasn't the only reason. She hadn't dragged it out just out of fear, she hadn't stared into his eyes, hadn't wanted to see the life slip from them, just to make the world a better place. She hadn't dragged it out completely because of fear but instead because...
"... because that's what Reno would have done," she finished.
She might consider thirst for revenge a base emotion, but she wasn't immune to it.
Rude didn't reply to that, but a slight nod of his head told her he understood, understood perfectly. Tifa glanced out the window once more, then stood up.
"Well, I guess I better get going. It's getting late and Karisa is waiting."
Rude nodded again, being his usual uncommunicative self as Tifa picked up her coat and put it on. When she was done she turned to look at him once more. She wasn't sure what to say, or even if there was anything left to say. She'd come to see him, she'd relayed the facts. Knowing Rude, that was pretty much all he would want to know. She wasn't a very talkative person, not the kind of person who could keep a conversation going all by herself. However, there was more she had to tell him, she just didn't know how to say it.
Rude however could see that she had something more on her mind. And, for some reason, he had a feeling he knew what it was.
"You're leaving, aren't you?"
Tifa didn't answer right away, just stood there looking at him. They both knew he wasn't talking about leaving the hospital. Finally she nodded.
"Yes," she said softly. Again a long silence fell between them. She waited for Rude to question her more, ask her why, but he never did, just lay there looking at her from some time then turned away.
"Goodbye," he said.
"So long Rude. I wish you the best."
She meant that. She didn't just say it to be polite. She hoped he understood that, but there seemed nothing more to say. And with that, she left, both of them knowing they would probably never see each other again.
Tifa turned north once she left the hospital. Away from her apartment. This was her neighborhood. She'd walked these streets many times in the years she had been living here but now they seemed different somehow. They weren't the same streets she used to walk. They were changed, tainted with the taste of death. It had happened before, first in Nibelheim, then in Midgar. All the places she had lived, had thought of as home, something had always happened that had changed her view of the place, had poisoned whatever good memories she may have had. Not that she had had many good memories since, well, in a long time. She walked down the street now, in a neighborhood she had lived in for years, and she felt like a stranger. There was nothing left for her here, just like there had been nothing left for her after Sephiroth destroyed Neibelheim, or meteor had destroyed Midgar. The city might not be destroyed this time, but it might as well have been. She needed to find a place that wasn't tainted by the stain of death, and she wasn't sure if she'd ever be able to find it. She did know, however, that that place wasn't here. It was time to move on, once again.
Delphine didn't live to far from Tifa's place. Karisa was waiting for her when she arrived. Once again she had been parted from her daughter. She couldn't take the chance of Karisa being there when Drax had come. Now she swept the young girl up in her arms, silently promising Karisa, and herself, that they would never be parted again.
Thanking Delphine and saying goodbye Tifa started on her way again, once more walking north, this time heading for the bus station that was just down the block. She held Karisa in her arms as she walked, her daughter lifting her head, looking around. Tifa didn't think she would notice they weren't headed home, but, surprisingly, the young girl did.
"Where are we going mommy?" she asked.
Tifa stopped for a moment, brushing the hair out of her eyes, looking down the street at the long line of drab concrete buildings that surrounded her. She'd had enough of Junon. It was time for a change.
"Away from here honey," she said wearily. "Far far away from here."