The Sun and the Moon

Moon waited until Sunny was asleep before leaving their bed. He cleaned himself once more and dressed, picking up the inhalable sedative the medic had given him on the sly. As Sunny inhaled he held the bottle up to her nose, relieved when her body lost the last of its tenseness. He now had a few hours to get some of the answers he needed. Putting the sedative back into his pocket he left the apartment and went back to the Garden.

Crews had done an effective job cleaning up the mess while President Vaughn talked quietly with Dragon, Wyvern, Vampire and Beast. Moon approached slowly, grateful when they parted for him. “President Vaughn I have a few questions,” he began, unsure of how he should word exactly what he was trying to say. A quick look to his left showed that Rockwell’s body had been removed and entirely new sod laid where it had been. “I was wondering if we could go somewhere more private?”

“Of course,” she allowed dismissing herself from the other men and taking Moon a short distance away. “I’d take you to my office by my continued presence is needed here,” she explained as she scanned the area and spoke to him quietly.

“Sunny’s reaction to Rockwell was…” Moon floundered for the right word.

“Sunny’s official government designation is Tau,” the president interrupted. “A Nanny unit from the same scrapped project you came from.”

“What?” Moon’s mouth dropped at the revelation, he had assumed his mate had been traumatically stressed as a child, not trained from literal birth to be a killing machine when the moment called for it. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he hissed, angry that such a large secret had existed between them for years.

“It wasn’t relevant at the time, Sunny had her temper under control, you are not a child, nor a threat, you wouldn’t be in danger. She bonded with you Moon, you do know what that means I take it? You all had training about your fellow agents and what they could do.”

“I thought I was getting away from that project and you put me with someone who’s exactly the same?! What if she hadn’t bonded with me? What if I didn’t want to be with her for the rest of my life? What if in a few years I had decided we didn’t suit? Would she have killed me?” Moon’s mind was reeling. “You saw what she did to Rockwell, she beat him to death with her bare hands.”

“That was unfortunate but you put yourself in danger by grabbing him,” when it looked like Moon was going to argue with her the President put her hands up defensively. “In all the years I have been here I never thought this would happen, when you and Sunny came to us two years ago the idea was that you would be able to defend against her better than someone with no training at all. You knew where to find her kill switch didn’t you?”

“They taught us it was a special spot, almost like an erogenous zone. I just wanted her to calm down, that place always worked,” Moon explained helplessly.

“She reacted that way because Rockwell hurt you, not Mouse, not Wyvern, not anyone else. Even if Rockwell had harmed Knight the only other way she would have reacted specifically the way she had was if Rockwell had hurt a child.”

“That is NOT an acceptable fail safe! She’s DANGEROUS!” Moon roared at the President, temper snapping.

“YES! SHE IS!” President Vaughn yelled back, shocking Moon into compliance as he looked around to discover that everyone else had finished or cleared out of the Garden as they had traded their brief conversation. “She’s dangerous but she’s NOT a mindless killer. You’ve made her mad before yes? All those jobs out of the Birdcage I send you on? All the times you leave her alone? All those broken promises you think I don’t know about?” President Vaughn stepped into his space. “That time you had been gone for nearly a month helping on that government contract and you were supposed to come home…I asked you to stay for an additional week and instead of telling me off you agreed. Tell me when you came home did Sunny try and kill you? Beat you up?”

“Well, she…”

“WHAT? What did she do Moon?”

“She made me sleep on the couch and didn’t talk to me for three days,” Moon mumbled.

“Oh! So she didn’t grab the nearest cleaver and stab you multiple times? Beat you senseless? She lost her temper but treated you exactly the same way any other woman might didn’t she? Her training doesn’t make her inhuman or anything less than who she is. That woman you wake up to in the morning, the woman you play video games with, the woman you call over the phone to say goodnight when you’re away, she’s still that person and she will never change.” President Vaughn put her hands against his shoulders calmly. “If you stay angry, if you leave her now without saying anything you are going not going mildly emotionally damage a highly trained special agent, you are going to break Sunny’s heart,” President Vaughn said softly.

Moon looked at her as if really seeing her for the first time. He pushed past the memories of so much blood and Sunny’s screams of rage as she did what her training had deemed necessary for her to do to protect someone she loved. He remembered the look of helplessness as she tried to piece together what she had done, the way she clung to him because he was the only thing in her world. The way her body had welcomed him like…like she’d never see him again. He remembered the utter relief of being safe, of knowing Sunny was okay, of needing to feel her in his arms again and…not thinking at all about the fact that she had killed someone. That had all come later when Sunny had fallen asleep, when he worried she might be damaged in some way and he would need to seek help for her. Without saying another word to President Vaughn Moon turned on his heel and strode away.