Kisuke is silent until Ichigo looks at him again, and he holds his gaze as he replies, immovable and steady in a way he feels down to his very bones, “I believe in you.”

Ichigo wheezes out a laugh at that, hurt and feral and broken right down the middle. “I’m no one’s moral compass anymore, Kisuke.”

Kisuke shrugs. “I don’t need you to be. I just need you to be you. And whether that means drenching the world in some more blood or rebuilding an entire civilization, I’ll still be right here beside you.”

Ichigo stares at him. Kisuke honestly doesn’t know why he’s so shocked. To him, it’s not anything he hasn’t already looked in the mirror and accepted - the sun rises in the east, water is wet, early mornings should be shot, and Kisuke looks to Ichigo first, always.

“I don’t think that’s a good thing,” Ichigo eventually mutters.
“I’m probably legitimately crazy at this point,” he adds with a self-deprecating twist of his mouth.

“Well then it’s a good thing I’ve done worse things in my life than follow a madman,” Kisuke murmurs, and this time, Ichigo’s laughter is still a shadow of what it used to be but it sounds a little more genuine too.

Vader asked, (well, screamed really) at Luke once when they were arguing: why?! Why stay, why bother? Anakin Skywalker is alive. Luke can go to him if he wants his precious Jedi father. Doesn’t Luke know by now that Vader is not going to change, he is not going to suddenly un-Fall, or be nice, or be good? This is who and what he is! Can’t Luke see it? If he can, why does he stay?

“Because you are my father, my family,” Luke says, hand reaching out but never actually touching, never actually connecting. "Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.“

It is an old Tatooine proverb. Half hope, half prayer because it is nothing more than a fantasy, a lie people tell themselves in the face of ugly reality. Families get left behind and lost all the time on Tatooine, but the poor people of that wretched dust ball still say such nonsense.

His mother used to say it.

Luke is acting like it could be true.

Shikamaru sighs in a way that somehow conveys both fond exasperation and grim concern. “Between the two of us, you're worse off than I am now, and you're still the one carrying me around.”



“I’m fine,” Sakura automatically deflects, and Shikamaru doesn't argue. They both know the truth what with the evidence right in front of them, that Sakura is too pale and too thin, just like Shikamaru, and with way too many torture-inflicted injuries to really belong anywhere except in a hospital bed. But she’s also the only one of them who still has two working legs which means she’s still their only way of moving forward.

Rogue alchemists were always a lot of trouble and paperwork, but the Demon Alchemist was special. He was the kind of vigilante that anyone could get behind. He never tackled situations that were morally gray; he stuck to rapists and murderers and people only a mother could tolerate. He’d been at this for three years, and by now, he was a hero to the average person on the street. They (the newspapers, not the military) had given him the title Demon Alchemist in honor of his tendency to transmute demon-shaped rocks and hurl them at deserving people. It was the kind of thing that made for an instant fan following.

All of which would have been fine if he hadn’t been a serial killer. (Though sometimes the hypocrisy of that thought choked Roy to a standstill.) A heroic serial killer. What was the law supposed to do about that?

Giant headache.

A pause.

Silence.

“This is new,” Roy says, brushing just his fingertips along the edge of the scarring shit around the bullethole.

“Oh, yeah,” Ed says. “Funny story about that.”

Roy gives him a dark look. “Ah, yes. Getting shot is hilarious.”

“Shit happens,” Ed says.

'You're not a doctor, are you.'

'I'm a monk,' said Chirrut, and patted him on the chest. 'So if you die from your wounds, I'll know what to do with your spirit.'

"Can you please tell our director why you are in law enforcement?"

Illya's brows lower. His fingers tremble near his leg. "To show I am worth more than my father."

"To avoid prison," calls Solo.

Gaby nods in thanks and returns the receiver to her ear. "War criminals took my father from me."

"Right. So," Waverly says. "My elite intelligence unit is in fact comprised of daddy issues, more daddy issues, and a sociopathic underwear model."

Gaby raises her eyebrows and lets the silence agree for her.

"Well," says Waverly, sounding bizarrely heartened. "I've worked with worse."