"Battle, you son of a bitch," Troll said. "This is for all the jokers who died on the Rox. This is for all of us the Sharks killed." His other huge hand drew back, fisted. Hotair chuckled in the background.
"No!" Gregg shrilled, his voice piercing. "I'm not Battle, damn it."
"Like hell," Troll said. "Which is where we're sending you right now."
"It's true. Please. You have to listen to me." Gregg wriggled at the end of Troll's grasp like a hook-speared worm.
"Troll!" Hannah said. "Let's hear him out."
"He's Battle, Hannah. We all know what he's been saying, but - "
"Troll ..."
"If I put him down, he'll be gone," Troll persisted. "He's fast, remember? Look at how quick those little feet are going."
"I can stop ..." Gregg muttered. He forced himself to cease running; it took several seconds, but at last he hung still in Troll's grasp. Troll lowered him carefully to the ground, and Gregg went over to Hannah, rising up with his first two segments as he looked at her.
"Hannah ..." he began. His body shuddered from the effort of standing up after all the running in place he'd just done; he dropped back to all sixes, peering up at her. "Hannah," he said when he could speak again. "Do you believe me?"
Grief and hope mingled on Hannah's face, but she pressed her lips together. She glanced at Father Squid and Dutton. "Give me a few minutes with him, Okay?"
"Hannah," Father Squid began, "I know what Dr. Finn said, but ..."
"I'm the one who'd know best, aren't I? Just ..." She blinked hard. "A few minutes, that's all." She looked down at Gregg, and he could see nothing in the blur of her face. "Come on," she said, and walked from the gallery into the next room.
On one side, Jetboy struggled with Dr. Tod in the gondola of the careening dirigible while in the background the bright red pieces of the JB-1 began their long fall to the city Delow. On the other wall, a frozen, tragic scene from the WHO Aces tour: Kahina stood over a bleeding Nur; Hiram Worchester fisted his hand as Sayyid crumpled in agony; Jack Braun gleamed golden while bullets ricocheted from his chest; Tachyon lay crumpled and unconscious. Gregg was there too, his shoulder bloody as Sarah Morgenstern tended to him and Peregrine flew overhead to attack the Nur's guards.
"Not one of my favorite moments," Gregg said softly.
"What?"
"Nothing." Gregg sighed - it sounded like a tea kettle boiling over. She was staring at him, but when their gazes met, she quickly looked away. "Hannah ... I don't know where to start. My God, I've missed you - "
"Shut UP!" The words were torn from her throat, harsh and shrill. Hannah closed her eyes for a second, biting her upper lip. "Just shut up," she said more calmly, her eyes still closed. When they opened again, she was looking at Gregg's waxen image in the Syrian diorama. He could see her reflection in the glass. "I ... I've never finished grieving for Gregg. The last few days of his life were so strange. He wouldn't see me, wouldn't talk to me or Father Squid. The press conference almost killed me; I felt betrayed and violated and used, and then ..." She stopped. She leaned her forehead against the glass, her hands pressed against it. "When he was murdered, the pain was worse than I thought anything could be. I've never stopped grieving. Not yet."
She looked at him, and her eyes were as cold and sharp as blue ice. "And then you came around. People told me that you were saying you were Gregg, but ..." Hannah stopped. She looked again at the Syrian exhibit before turning back to him. "Finn said you were there, in the lab. Is that what you came to tell us?"
"Yes, but it seems you already know it," Gregg said. "But you can't just wait for Barnett to save you. You can't count on the police or the feds or anyone else taking care of the Black Trump. You have to do it."
"Not me," Hannah said. She was staring at him.
"What do you mean?"
Hannah crouched in front of him, close enough that he could see her face clearly. Her breath was mint touched with a lingering trace of coffee. "Let me ask you again. Who are you?"
"I'm Gregg," he said, and saw her visibly wince with the words. Her smell changed at the same time, subtly. "Hannah, no one wants to believe it, but I was jumped - before that damn press conference, before my body was killed. The Sharks did it: in fact, that was probably Battle who was in my body during that last meeting. Hannah - " His body wriggled; he guessed it was his new equivalent of a shrug. "I remember the first time we made love - in your room at Father Squid's parsonage, after we'd gone to Aces High. Father was gone, Quasiman was sitting downstairs in one of his fugues.... Would Battle know that?"
Hannah breathed, a hoarse exhalation. Still crouching, she let her head drop. Her long hair hid her face. "I don't believe you. This is a trick."
Gregg took a breath, cursing his new body and the puny voice it gave him. There was no power to it, no Puppetman, no Gift: it was only a voice and the words had to convince by themselves. It wasn't fair. "The second time we spent the night at my apartment. You said you hadn't figured me for a reader. You asked me if I'd actually read all of the books in my office."
"No ..."
"You'd forgotten your toothbrush. I gave you one from the closet in the bathroom: red, I think. We made love again that morning and that - " Gregg stopped and took a breath. "That was the first time you said that you loved me," he finished.
"Gregg." A whisper. Her head came up. She was staring at him, her hands clenched into tight fists on her knees. Light from the diorama painted harsh shadows under her eyes. "It's really you." It was no longer a question.
"Yes. I'm Gregg," he said, and the knowledge that she believed him set blood pounding in his temples. Relief flooded through him, its depth surprising him. He hadn't known how important it was that someone - anyone - believe him.
Hannah sobbed once, a choking gasp that she muffled with her hands. Her eyes were wide and frightened. "I wanted to think it was real," she said. "When I heard from Oddity, Jube, and Jo Ann, I wanted so badly to believe you were still alive. Then when Dr. Finn said it might be true ... Oh God, Gregg ..."
Her hands came toward him, trembling. They smelled of soap. The first touch was feather light, but it burned deliciously on his skin. Her fingers caressed him, withdrew, then returned, until she cupped his head in her hands.
He realized that it was the first time anyone had touched him in some way other than violence in months.
"I'm so sorry," she told him. Tears drew glistening trails down her cheeks. "Gregg ..." On her knees, she pulled him to her. She hugged his joker body to herself, and Gregg marveled. Her warmth was an aching fire, her smell jasmine.
She still cares - without the Gift, without anything. Yet if it had been Hannah instead of me, if she had been twisted into this mockery, I couldn't... "How can you?" he husked, wonderingly, and a deeper guilt ran through him like a blade.
Her arms tightened around him. Her voice sounded deep, resonating through him. "How could I not?" she asked him. "I loved what you were, what your are: your mind, your compassion, your leadership. The body ..." She pulled away from him. Her eyes searched his face, unashamed of the tears. "I wasn't your friend for that, Gregg. Please don't hate yourself, because I don't. You're alive - that's what matters. Nothing else."
If you knew ... Some of that self-loathing spilled out. "That's goddamn easy for you to say," he retorted, the words out before he could stop them, but she only nodded into his rage.