[h2]Benedict Mercier[/h2]

	To say that she really hadn't gotten the drop on him would be a lie. It was out of habit that he reached for his gun in the first place, a habit that he found himself hesitating over for a fraction of a second. Somewhere in his brain, he asked himself, "Do I really intend to shoot her?" He hesitated, "No." It cost him. The needle sank into his neck like butter.   
	Somewhere far away, he was able to make out the screech of his tires. [i]Angel.[/i] That kid was going to be in so much trouble. Ben promised himself he'd see to it that Angel was sacred straight. He'd have him stay in a cell overnight. He'd make him mop up urinals... He'd... He'd... 
He was slipping. 

Oh. She got him [i]good[/i].
Real good.
Reallll goooood.
Reallllll GoOoOoo-


[h3]Blackness...[/h3]


[indent][i][color=00aeef]On the surface of the moon, air is fresh and crisp. Breathable. Gravity on it’s surface gives a body the sensation of moving against a slow river current. Everything floats, and everything is washed silver; every rock, every crag, every particle, glow in ethereal silence. 

Ben trudged forward, dust his boots kick up along the way hang suspended in ghostly clouds about his ankles. He was still in uniform with the front of his shirt torn open. Though, just who or what had caused it to tear, would forever remain a mystery. Clear buttons from his shirt hovered a few meters in front of him, glittering in the lunar light. If he could reach them, maybe he could fix it. 

Maybe he could fix everything.

“They say that if anger is a gun aimed at someone, guilt is a gun that is aimed at yourself.” 

“Manny?”

“Hey man. So, what do you say? You gonna hurry up and kill yourself?” Manny's voice came from someplace low. Looking down, he saw that his gun was still in its holster. “If you feel so bad, why not just get it over with?” Manny's voice offered reasonably, "You owe me one don't you, Red?"

Ben looked around and saw nothing. He reached for the gun at his hip, unholstered it, its silver barrel emitting the same unnatural glow. It was heavy, heavier than he had ever remembered it being. Brows knit together, pensive, “I don't think... I..." he turned over the weapon in his hand. Trying again, he whispered, “...I don't know...” His words didn't seem to matter as he found his arm reaching upwards to press the weapon against the left side of his temple. "Its all my fault." Images of Manny's headless corpse glowed across the moon's endless silver terrain. He lowered the gun, bewildered. He saw more images materialize in the ground before him. Manny's mouth twisted with pain as his head rolled down the sidewalk and into a sewer drain. He saw himself, Ben, straining with all of his might to reach it. He strained, and strained, and then ripped off his Kevlar vest and tore off his shirt. Free of the bulky clothing, he tried again, strained, and strained, he tried to reach Manny until he felt ribs finally crack under pressure. The glowing images showed him screaming in sheer frustration, it showed him beating the pavement until they too snapped under pressure. Ben watched himself heave large industrial metal trash cans into the empty street as if they were little more than pebbles. He watched himself roar into the empty street like a madman. 

The head of Manny Torres was still out there, eyes probably still open. Rotting away at the Big Apple from the inside. 

"I've seen enough." A cold numbness had fallen over him. Resolute, he raised the barrel to his head, "Enough. I get it now." From behind him, two pale white arms snaked around his waist, nose and lips pressed at the back of his head. Warm breath caused the hair to rise at the back of his neck. Someone was kissing his birthmark.      

"Benedict, my child. Why have you forsaken me?" A voice familiar, yet not intimately so, whispered in gentle hushed tones. It was the kind of voice that belonged to anyone and no one; wise yet filled youth and vigor; it was the kind of voice that signaled The Hunt; one that could inspire intellect, and one that could drive men to madness. "You have been stricken with a curse. A curse every child born under Cancer must bare deep within their hearts."     

"You're a little late. I've been a reformed man for years now." A shiver slid down the base of his spine after which, he found that he could no longer move. Ben squeezed the trigger but his finger wouldn't even budge. He tried again, he squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed it, tried with all of his power to pull it. 

"Cancer's madness has taken your emotions hostage, yet you are not without hope. Your pain is crippling your abilities now, when you need them the most."

"I've been living fine without religion."

"And now on the eve of your new life? Meeting that woman wasn't an accident- you still haven't told her the truth. If you wanted to, you could have put more effort into finding her sooner, couldn't you? For months you've been avoiding having to reach into the depths of yourself. The illness you harbor is preventing you from facing the truth. The truth of what happened that day is that you saw her coming, Ben. You spotted her in a crowd from far away and you made sure to walk into her. You did it because you were knew she'd be in trouble if you didn't. She didn't know that you saved her from something that day. Do you even recall what that danger was?"

"Truth is relative. That day I only acted on a hunch, and honestly, I really don't know why I acted that way, maybe I was wrong."

"Seek me out. Seek me, and I will let you reclaim yourself. I will give you back what is every Cancer's birthright." 

"I won't."

"You will eventually, Ben. Drink from the well, son of Cancer. Drink deeply and know thyself."

[/color][/i][/indent]
 

	As he regained hold of his mental faculties, there came a voice from above him, clipped and worried, "Right".
 
	"Water," his voice was a rough whisper, "Please. I'm very thirsty." At this, he could hear the sounds of her boots shuffling back and forth with indecision. He groaned, "It's just water, sweetheart. What harm can I do with a little of that?" He kept his eyes tightly shut, attempting to ward off any light in the room. He grinned in what he thought might be her direction. He'd been told by women that he was, 'mischievously handsome', red hair and lips that were usually prone to smirking.  
	
	The sound of her solitary snort came from the opposite direction of what he had assumed. Ben could practically feel her eyes rolling as she shuffled her way to the sink. [i]Great,[/i] he thought to himself, [i]Well shit, whatever it takes.[/i] He tried to sit up once he heard the water running, but found it strangely difficult to manage. The chinking of metal on metal and sharp pain cutting into his wrist immediately clued him into the situation. He grimaced, "Why? Why do I always have to be the one in cuffs...just once I'd like it if..." he opened his eyes one at a time. Shaking his head, he waited until his vision slowly came into focus. 

	Too soon, the woman made her way back to him, she held a plastic cup and stood there looking at him. Some unnamed expression bubbled beneath her cool exterior, though it could have been his own imagination. When she finally did speak, Ben wished that she hadn't, "It took me a while to realize who you were, Benedict Mercier." She reached for something out of his field of vision, and then held up what he knew instantly to be an old catalog from a department store, "you used to be an underwear model, right?"

	He nearly choked. "That catalog is at least three years old. Why in the world-"

	"It came with the place," she countered defensively. "Boxes of all sort of stuff left behind under the sink." 

	There was a long silence in which Ben experimentally flexed against his restraints, "Hmmmn..."

	"Benedict Mercier. A police officer, right? It doesn't make sense of how someone like you who modeled..." she trailed off, flipping a few pages, "-it seems that there was even an article written-"

	"I was young, I needed some money-" beyond mortified, he decided to try and steer the conversation in a different direction, "Unhook me, I won't make any arrests. I just need to make a few calls so we don't get SWAT surrounding the place."