The room was dark. The sun had set hours ago, but she hadn't been able to muster the energy to turn on any of the lights. And if perhaps it was a little lonely and cold, there, in the dark, she figured the alternative was worse. The lights would only reveal the stripped and empty ruin of what had once been a happy home. Still, there was no hiding from it completely. After all, nothing could stop the cars which passed on the street outside. The light curtains could not shut out the headlights which would spill through the windows painting black walls white, throwing their insensitive, bland illumination over the emptied bedroom.

Tania sat curled up at the head of their bed. Her back ached, having sat there in that position through those same hours of darkness since the sun had gone down. She couldn't bear to move, though. She was curled up under a comforter, one which still smelled of him. When MNU agents had invaded their home, seizing things, there hadn't been much she could save. What significance many of the items might have had to their investigation she could not fathom. With her father directing their removal, however, she had come to suspect some of them had been taken out of spite. Once they'd gone, she'd spent hours sifting through what remained, searching desperately for whatever traces of her husband they might have left.

One of those very few, precious things she had found now rested lightly in her hands.

It was a small ring. It had been made from the handle of an old silver spoon, with a very small seashell stuck in place on top like a gem. It had seemed a silly little thing that first day she'd seen it, just another cute little gesture of the sort he was fond. He'd told her the shell had come from that beach where they'd first— Back then she had been forced to blush. Now her throat only tightened as she realized she couldn't remember the name of that beach. Wikus would remember, but he wasn't there to ask.

It hadn't seemed so silly once it dawned on her what the ring was for.

He had bought her a proper engagement ring later, of course. Once her father had given him his first position at MNU, he could afford one. The trinket had been stuffed into one of her jewelry boxes—with care for its fragility, though with little other thought. Forgotten. When she'd found it, after their search, after hers, she felt almost as though it had been waiting there for her. As though it's true purpose had always been to remain with her, years later, a small piece of her husband that they couldn't take away.

The enshrouding, sepulchral quiet of her home was breached for the first time in hours by a knock at her door.

Her fingers curled reflexively in her lap where her hands lay, nearly forming into a fist around her treasure. Bitter frustration finally pulled from her eyes the tears she'd so carefully managed to stall. As empty as it was, the solitude she'd dubiously allowed herself to enjoy was the closest thing she'd felt to peace in days. Clear evidence of life's needless cruelty, not satisfied to have robbed her of her husband, in the wake of this tragedy it seemed she had lost any claim to privacy for her grief. It had been hard won, this still core of silence. She'd unplugged her phone, shutting out the reporters. It had shut out the well-wishers too, a fact she could not bring herself to regret. Out of any who might attempt to offer their sympathies only her husband's family would understand what she was going through. Though, even if the van der Merwes had managed to contact her, it was beyond her what she could possibly say to them.

The knock sounded at the door again. For a long moment, she tried to convince herself to ignore it.

The harassing attention of the media had reached its crescendo just yesterday as the conflict in District 9 had come to a close. She'd watched from home in horror as the whole thing was captured from above, the disconnected feeling that had carried her through the past few days leaving her with the feeling she actually flew above the distant scene. The violence had been unbelievable, dozens of MNU agents, dead, along with an unknown number of the aliens living there. Bloodshed and the departure of the ship had stirred the residents from their hovels in aimless multitude. From the helicopter's high vantage, it had looked like nothing so much as an upset ant hill. It had all been so surreal that she could only sit there, paralyzed as she watched the marauding alien machine. She could only sit, motionless, as it faltered and spat out her husband. She could only sit, helpless, breathless as the dust had settled and the gun was leveled on him.

She could only sit in pale, quaking, bewildered shock as that man, about to murder her husband, was torn to pieces.

For long hours after she could not have found words if she had wanted to. Yet everyone had wanted to know what she had to say about it, all the same. God help her, she'd been forced to feel a disgusted sort of gratitude for the precious resources her father had diverted just to keep them all away. On the dying footfalls of that thought, she realized who was knocking. Only one person would have gotten past the line of surly mercenaries placed to safeguard whatever brutalized shreds of her sanity remained—the one person from whom she could not hide, for he would be certain for that exact reason that she was still home.

Tania shut her eyes tightly, pulling in a deep breath. A final few tears shivered down her cheeks. Before she even stood, she slipped the ring onto her hand. Her fingers were not quite as slender as they once had been, and it went on tightly, but she refused stubbornly to move until it was on. She stood before the door, looking out through the sight and saw her father there, waiting. Scrubbing the salt tears from her face with the back of her hand she felt somewhat childish, as though in some back corner of her mind, a five year old girl wanted to cry into her father's chest the unfairness of the world and trust that he could make it all better.

The thought almost sent her back to bed.

Piet Smit's face was solemn when his daughter opened the door, possessed of disarming neutrality. Whatever grief he might have for the loss she felt, she was sure none was spared for Wikus himself. Tania did not greet her father. Her face betrayed almost less than his, evidencing only wretched, washed out exhaustion. His eyes searched her face and posture carefully. He seemed to measure the weight of what he had to say, gauging whether or not it would break her.

From his pocket, he pulled a small, sealed plastic bag. An opaque logo obscured the contents, proclaiming them property of MNU. He handed the bag over to her slowly. Turning it over in her hands Tania felt a small round shape under the thin plastic. She realized, a painful surge stabbing her chest, that among other items, it held Wikus's wedding ring.

Some of her strength left her momentarily as she clutched the bag to her chest, breath fighting her in her throat. Piet took the opportunity, with a hand on her shoulder, to draw her into the house, shutting the door behind them. His hand lingered there, heavy and cold-feeling from his time on the front step. His arm wrapped her shoulders gently and he held her, cloaking her in the chill of the outside air. In spite of herself, she leaned against him, sickened slightly by her own comfort at something so solid.

"Hush, Tania," he said quietly, low, his voice seeming to vibrate through her bones in the still dark, "everything will be okay."

His words were the same that he'd spoken before—just before her life had turned from a simple tragedy into a circus. Remembering, it only made their use here sound hollow.

She placed a hand against his chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt before finally pushing him away from her with a shaking breath. It wasn't until she'd won space between them that she dared look up into his face. The depth of pity she saw there was terrible.

"It breaks my heart, seeing you like this." He said, slowly lifting his hand over hers where it still rested against his chest. His rough thumb stroked the backs of her fingers as he'd done when she was a child and couldn't sleep, though it was far beyond the power of his touch to banish her nightmares now. His eyes fell down to the hand held in his grasp, and she saw as he noticed the small shell ring the distaste that flicked visibly over his face. Tania had always been vaguely aware of the disappointment her father had felt at her choices. She was only now beginning to suspect how deeply his dislike of Wikus had gone.

He breathed a sigh, the sound carrying a weariness of its own.

"I can't understand why you don't let him go." He said sorrowfully. "After the way he's betrayed you—betrayed all of us. It can all be over if you let it."

Gently, he reached toward her face, drawing a lock of hair out of her eyes. The movement and contact forced her to meet his gaze. The grief lining his expression was the most sincere she thought she'd seen from him in years.

"Please, Tania. Don't let that man's sins ruin your life."

She didn't have a response for him. She drew her arms in, curling them tightly around the bag he'd given her. The sound of crinkling plastic served to remind her of why he'd come. Of the man her father was so energetically trying to erase from her life.

"Tell me what you've done with him, Dad." Her voice was so raw and strange sounding. She couldn't remember the last time she'd heard herself speak. Over the past few days, her greatest fear had involved being required to speak to anybody. "Tell me the truth."

"First you said it was his arm, and then—" She broke off, trying to control the ragged breathing which threatened at any moment to transform into a cascade of uncontrolled sobs. But the outrage inspired by MNU's claims roused frustration and anger she could hardly articulate. Its release bubbled to the surface with explosive force, leaving her distantly shocked as her fist slammed against his chest.

"Did you think I wasn't watching? I saw—" Rage was so thick in her voice she nearly choked on it. "I saw what he did. You want me to believe that's from a fokken STD?! I'm not stupid, Dad!"

She hammered his sternum again in emphasis as her voice rose, broken and angry. Taking in his stunned look, her jaw and eyes both clenched shut painfully, shutting out all but his soft utterance of her name. She stood silently, still shaking with anger. She imagined him trying to deny his lies to her.

"Please, just tell me the truth for once." She pleaded finally, her voice half-strangled. She took another moment to compose herself, trying for calm in her next words, but they emerged thick, laden with hurt and the full weariness of the past days. Her eyes dropped tears as she opened them. "The truth. Or we're never talking again."

And despite all he was responsible for, her own words cut her heart. Harshly. Despite all he was responsible for, he was still her father, after all. She saw him frown, his eyebrows drawing together, and saw the dozen imagined platitudes and arguments that had been running through his mind snuff out as though by a cold wind. He gripped the aching hand that still rested against his breastbone. But, as the silence stretched between them, long and taught like a spring, she came to know with a bitter certainty that silence would be the only forthcoming answer.

And when, short minutes later, the door closed with him on the other side of it the sound rang with the painful finality of a gunshot.

Author's Note: I'd originally meant this fic to focus solely on Wikus's transformation. The title only suggested itself, from the title of a movie I saw once, while I was uploading the story. Thinking about that, and about Wikus's last words in the film, I couldn't help but think the story was trying to tell me that Tania needed to play a bigger part in it. From the size of this chapter, it seems she has a lot to say.