Zarah was left alone for a while before Team Lightyear left the messy stocks with her. Weakly she went to the room where the last catastrophe had happened. She wanted to see whether there was left something from her loved one, maybe a piece of his coat to be taken with as the last memory. It was as if the heavens had been laughing her, making her life to a constant tragedy. Three days she had been happily married and what was she now? A widow...?
As she inspected the room, she noticed something odd on the floor. It was a footprint of a heavy boot, treaded in the dust that covered the end part of the space. A bit further, there was another. It was aimed towards a pile of old boxes. And... when she peeked behind them, there was a broken window, without the glass. Just appropriate in size for a man to crawl. On the sill were some blood marks. Her watery eyes flied open. No... Could it be...? The frames opened a view to a dirty back yard with miry sand as its pavement. A gate hung in the low fence with one hinge. As she leered at the ground, she distinguished a few more bootprints on the mud. They vanished towards the fence. A drastic shiver went along her spine and hot tears came back to her eyes.
"Did he... did he get away? I-is h-he... alive?" she kept repeating in her mind like some mantra, panting and gaping at the yard.
Buzz came to inspect the room too, while Zarah was still there. He needed to think. He needed to see with his own eyes what had happened. Like Zarah's, his jaw dropped open when she pointed at the marks.
"Could... he be alive?" he whispered and shook his head.
"I don't know", she inspected the floor with lachrymal eyes. "If he was... how long would he survive out there, bleeding...? Zurg after him..." she sniffed.
"After all these years... I hear that his heart had changed..." Buzz touched the sill and graveness shadowed his eyes.
"Would you do one thing for me, Captain?" she quietly asked. "You talked about the possibility of getting an amnesty for him... if he is out there, if he would survive somehow... he would have at least one danger less after him. Would you take this thing to the court?"
Buzz put both hands on her shoulders and looked her with compassionate eyes. "I promise. I make it sure that no one of the Universe Protection Unit is never hunting him again. That man has purified his soul and past in everyone's eyes."
-------------
Two weeks passed fast. Zarah was in the middle of a trial. She was being interrogated every day and asked to testify several things in front of the Galactic Alliance Superior Court. It was now all about Warp, she told her story how he had saved her, how he had betrayed his former master and given her all the information about the infiltrators in Star Command and so on. But, not with a single word was told about Xaneda or the latest happenings there. Tiredly she answered the same questions day after day, her heart heavy about that Warp was out there somewhere, maybe dead, maybe injured, who could know. During the first days of her comeback, she had eagerly hoped to get some kind of message from her again lost love, but in vain. The black and lonely nights had followed each other just like before this, there was no one to console her in her deep depression.
Then came the day that she was for the last time invited to the court to hear the decision concerning Warp. The judgement came straight from Madame President. In this case, the criminal was so dangerous and wanted that no common lawyer was there to do the resolution alone. The case was recycled even through the parliament. Sobbing in her tissue, she listened to the words that told that Warp Darkmatter was given an amnesty because of his extraordinary deed. With watery eyes, Zarah stared the empty seat beside her. He should have been there, to hear this... her lover, her husband... he would be a free man, if only, if only he was alive somewhere. But in her sorrow she was in the belief that he was now assassinated by some of the bounty hunters of Zurg, or simply had not survived the hornet-attack.
In the first row, Buzz Lightyear sat and bowed his head. He winced as he heard the judge concluding the amnesty declaration to these words: "Assumingly former wanted by the police Warp Darkmatter is dead. This remains as formal announcement of his decision to pardon. We all want him to rest in peace if the information from the reliable source is true." Sorrow wrinkled the forehead of the captain. Now as he finally would hear after all these years that his ex-partner had left the dark side, he was pronounced dead. Too late... but at least there was the fact that Darkmatter had gained good reputation after his passing... unless he still was alive.
Zarah left the court alone. Buzz had offered her a lift home, but she had declined with thanks. She wanted just be alone, drabble in her bereavement. She did not have any interest in taking a cab speeder; she just thought to walk home the whole five-kilometre distance. So, she limbed along the streets like a ghost, then decided to take a shortcut to her apartment through a shanty town-looking district. She knew that the streets here were not actually very safe for an alone woman, but she did not care any more. What was there left for her? Her career. Yeah, right. Nothing but work. Emotional pain gashed and ripped her heart and put it literally beat in wrong rhythm. Extrasystolis, again, not dangerous but disgusting. And she oddly felt like someone would have been watching her all the time. There was this nauseous, sixth sense, that everything was not right behind her back. En route home, she even turned a couple of times about to see, whether there was something back there, but all it seemed to be the torment of her depressed mind.
She had turned to a brick road that very narrowly was delineated between two grimy and steep penthouses. The sun was gradually going down, its last beams stretched over the roofs to the backstreet. However, Zarah did not have any more strength to walk forwards. She had prevented her most bitter tears till the last minute, but now she collapsed to the ground and began to cry hysterically. She scratched the dirty wall with her hands and ripped her hair. Blood oozed from her fingertips that gradually were rubbed sore against the coarse concrete.
But she startled quite a lot as she felt a light touch on her shoulder. Trough her fluctuating and blurry vision she saw somebody kneeled beside her as she weakly turned her regard upwards. With her sleeve, she wiped a bit the tears away and looked the person from toes to head. It was a man, dressed in a huge grey cloak, which was put deep over his head. From the abysses of the hood, were distinguished the frame of large black sunglasses. The hand on her shoulder was bandaged upwards from the thumb, those wrappers continuing inside the sleeve. In the middle finger glimmered a forge-decorated platinum ring.
Her eyes went wide open and her palate dried as she tried to stammer something. The man kissed a tear away from her cheek and whispered: "Don't cry, Zarah..."
She inhaled deep closing her eyes and nuzzled into his embrace.
"Shht... I may be formally dead to the rest of the world, but for you, I'm alive. The seals of xaret¨a are not broken, I'm here for you, the life goes on... " the man continued.
After some time they both stood up and left the messy road, Zarah pressed tight under the arm of the shadowy stranger. Together they vanished towards the sunset, wherever they then decided to head their way.
...
...
So, in the gust of wind we're back together
Your beauty living beside me
The shadows have gone
They've left my heart
Only the smile
is there,
now.
Yoda © Lucasfilm, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command © Disney/Pixar, Choi Zarah G'Deneb © Engineer Jess