He had a large spare room converted to her own, with a hospital bed and everything she needed for her comforts within. The last 18 months had been the hardest to endure for him as he had found out from her during her first trip to the hospital in that time that he had been appointed her executor of estate, and her legal caregiver. Any medical, legal, financial, or other questions would go through him when she was not considered of sound mind to make those decisions.
"Why me?" The shock across his face was easy to see for the old woman despite being mostly blind.
This had been one of her clear days. A day when she was considered of sound mind and it was on those days that she and Vincent had the important discussions to iron out things that hadn't been taken care of yet. The smile on her wrinkled face as she reached up to brush his still black hair out of his face, still managed to light up the room with his serene glow. "Because I trust you. You have been my friend, my closest confidant and more for over 60 years now."
Thick glasses made the attempt to improve Maiya's vision, but between cataracts and old age, her vision failed her more often then not. The fact that she had been living with Vincent these last ten years was what allowed for her to get around his home as well as she did. He had refused to take no for an answer when he moved her out of her apartment above what used to be her shop, a little more than 15 years after she finally retired. He claimed that he was lonely and tired of living in his house which was plenty big enough for the both of them alone while he simply packed everything up and moved her out over the course of the day, hiring a moving company to get her things while he took care of the major necessities for her move.
Both knew however that he was getting more and more worried about her. Granted at that time her step was still steady as ever as long as she had her two canes to walk around with. But she had taken a couple of short falls that had scared the life out of him almost as badly as her accidents in her earlier years had done to him. So they came to the agreement that she would live with him on the first floor of his home while he would still have the master bedroom upstairs.
Times had changed, and of all their friends; Nanaki, Vincent, and Maiya were the only ones still alive. The others having lived hard, violent lives found their peace eventually either in combat protecting the peace they'd obtained, or in bed, having retired from the harder life of the WRO military. Nanaki was only part time active duty with the WRO now, more as a consultant now than a member of the military, while Vincent did a little of everything as needed. However this last year and a half his time spent actively participating in WRO activities had been cut down to almost nil as he had made it abundantly clear that he was needed to take care of Maiya. Those that didn't know who Maiya was in the WRO elite's life were quickly informed by the older members who had time and experience with the pair and quickly let him have the time needed to care for the woman.
Having been released from the hospital she was remanded to hospice care save for when she was in critical need of hospital oversight. Once a day a nurse would stop by the house to help Vincent take care of Maiya's daily care needs. Bathing, his long time friend was something he was not able to accustom himself to doing as they had always had a boundary of privacy. Though that boundary was beyond broken now with her care needs in his hands now, but he was still uncomfortable with covering all of her care needs. So he had a nurse come in to help him with certain tasks.
Being that he lived in the same house as Maiya, he could never get away from his caregiver duties. This was something that stressed him terribly as there would be days where Maiya's dementia driven actions drove him to distraction. Other days she would be so quiet he would be checking on her often to ensure that nothing had happened to her in the time he was out of the room. There were days when the visiting nurse would take one look at Vincent and point imperiously out the front door, telling him to get the hell out for a few hours. All of the nursing staff assigned to Maiya's case at the Hospice center knew that Vincent was driving himself into the ground looking after the woman alone. It was cases like this that they took their orders and expanded on them, caring for the caregivers as well giving them a few hours to a full day away from the home each week.
It was one of those outings that he got a call from the visiting nurse. "Maiya needs to be hospitalized. Please meet her there." Words he didn't want to hear, yet gave him some measure of hope at the same time that now was not her time. After all, Hospice Care did not hospitalize the dying, only the ill. This did not prevent him from leaving his meal unfinished and racing across town to the hospital that had her standing orders and his information on record.
When he got to the hospital he was informed that he'd have to wait for any information, but the initial diagnosis was that Maiya had fallen in the bathroom due to a stroke. This caused no small amount of fear in Vincent as he had seen others who had been victimized by their own minds, he could only hope that Maiya's case was not as severe as they were making it sound.
As he literally ran into the doctor, his reflexes kicked in to prevent them from both spilling onto the floor. One foot stepping back to re-balance himself his hand snapped out to steady the medical professional. Recognizing the man as Maiya's in house doctor he asked. "Maiya, where is she?"
The doctor was well aware of Vincent's habits by now in relation to the woman he had just asked about. He could tell Vincent everything now and irritate the man, or tell him where Maiya was being kept and his own location for when he was ready to ask questions. Usually there was an overlap of the two. The questions were usually asked as Vincent was looking over his friend and her chart. Not much could be done about that. No matter how private a patient's chart was supposed to be, the man would always find a way to look at it. There were always questions after that, always.
"Maiya isn't out of testing yet, however she has been assigned a room for the foreseeable future. Walk with me and I'll get you permission to wait there for her." As the two of them waited in the room for Maiya to be returned from the multiple testings, the doctor was continually updated as to the condition of the patient. Reading the information before handing it over to the woman's care giver he made sure that there were no further questions before he left the room to bring Maiya back for rest and the beginning of whatever recovery she would make.
Twelve days later found Maiya walking out of the hospital as well as she had ever been able to. Vincent had been pleased with her recovery and he had surprised some of the younger doctors with his knowledge not only of medicine, but of his friend, and how to get her to push herself harder in her physical and occupational therapy.
All of this and more had happened not but a few months ago and spanned back through the last two years. Looking up at the doorway he saw that the Hospice nurse as well as Nanaki had made it though the older friend looked like he had traveled a while to get to the house. Gesturing them in he quickly gave then nurse a rundown of the symptoms he had run across that afternoon since lunch and could only close his eyes with a clenched jaw as she agreed with his diagnosis that Maiya would not outlast the afternoon.
Nanaki could only agree with both of them as his other senses, heightened from use and from who he was only told him that the woman was dying. What surprised him however was that Vincent had his glove off and while he spoke with them from the far side of the bed had not removed his fingers from the older woman's wrist. Those who did not know the older specialist, would not have noticed the occasional glance up at the clock on the wall as the second hand swept around the minutes, or the minute tightening of fingers as the woman's heart faltered before picking back up in pace again. The only thing that Nanaki could deduce from all of this was that Vincent wasn't ready to let go just yet, even though he had been prepared over the last couple of years for the woman to pass on at any time.
Stepping up to the bed and ignoring the look he received from the nurse, he looked across the bed to his oldest friend. "You need to let her go Vincent. She's lived a long life, most likely much longer than her life would have been had she never met you and become your friend."
As Vincent looked up, his eyes, red from grief, and pain locked onto the lighter brown eyes that seemed to convey sympathy, and understanding without the pity that the elder had despised for so long. Seconds swung around on the clock and the nurse had left the room to take care of other elements of her job on a call like this. The two left in the room shared a moment where it was understood that once Maiya died, a part of Vincent would die as well. His voice was quiet however even as he spoke, his clawed hand gently brushing the hair out of her eyes, "She told me once, that once she met me, she had few regrets in her life."
Nanaki was well able to read the conversation for what it was and queued his former partner on, "But?"
"She told me once, and only once that she never regretted becoming my friend, only that she wasn't able to be more." Vincent's eyes tracked over the dying face of his friend; regrets, sorrows, and even pain flashing through his eyes as he remembered that conversation those months after she had gotten out of the hospital. "I never told her that she had always been more than a friend to me. She was everything to me at times. When I had missions where I nearly died, she never knew of them, I never wanted her to worry about me at the level I did about her, especially after the hunt when she had been attacked by a local gang. But she worried anyway, and it was thoughts of her that got me back to the WRO headquarters on those missions that I came in brutalized, but the opponent had been much worse."
Nanaki was surprised at the 'confessions' he was hearing from Vincent, but could see that the man needed to get them said. "I'm sure she knows that she was important to you, as a friend and whatever more you had."
The nurse has just come back into the room as the sun was slanting in from the North West, washing everything in pale light. Nanaki knew however that something was going on when Vincent's fingers once again gripped at Maiya's wrist and instead of relaxing as they found the pulse again, or waited to start, he gripped again, in a slightly different angle. Glancing up at the clock something seemed to leave the man as he looked up at the Nurse, "Please, double check me, I think Maiya's gone."
Nanaki blinked as the nurse stepped up to the bed, checking the pulse points and listening with the stethoscope for what seemed like forever before she closed her eyes in a short benediction and then glanced at the clock. "Time of death, 4:34PM." Looking over at the two friends that had stayed in the room for the afternoon she placed a hand on Vincent's "I'm sorry. I know she was important to you, but it was her time."
Had the shuddering sigh not left him, Vincent was certain that his was all one of his many nightmares come true. Not caring who saw him, he stared at the face of his friend now gone, twin tears of pain and loss tracking their way down his cheeks as he neglected to wipe them away while he watched as the nurse prepared her to be moved to the crematorium where she had specified she had wanted to be cremated at before burial.
Nanaki watched in silence as all of this happened, knowing that there would be no words he could say that could ease the pain of his friend's heart break. Instead he quietly stepped around the bed and sat next to Vincent, watching over his friend, and making sure that the newly dead was treated with all the deference and respect one of their friends deserved. Vincent would need watching, and if the man disappeared again he knew that there would be no stopping it, or finding Vincent. While Nanaki was starting to feel his age finally, he knew that Vincent still had a long time ahead of him, and if he chose to spend some of that time out of the view of the world, in mourning for all of the friends he had lost over the last decade or so, then that was up to him. It would be a great loss to the world to lose such bright spirits, but Nanaki knew that there were only so many hurts a man could take before retreating to nurse them.
After the funeral had ended and the will had been taken care of, another will had been delivered to Nanaki's address. This one not so much a last will, but more of a line of instructions for him and his children. Vincent had indeed disappeared, the sorrows weighing on the man's heart finally pulling him back into the depression he had worked so hard to escape from so many years before. To escape them, he once again went into a hidden hibernation in a location not even Nanaki had been told of. Instead the Will had delineated several instructions on the care and upkeep of several graves as well as several buildings. This charge, being one that he knew his family would not be able to escape, he read it out loud to his mate and children, letting them know in no uncertain terms that they were now the new guardians of these places, that their upkeep would be upheld, and should Vincent return someday to the rest of the world, they would also be historians so that he would be able to learn what had happened in the time he dreamed.
They all hoped that someday, they would see him again, but until that day a small grave site with several markers were kept up, the most elaborate being one that did not belong to a fighter in the group, but instead to one that taught them all a little bit of life.