Anyone who hadn't known the Watch, the Night Watch in particular,
would have been surprised at the way things were dealt with. By the
time Carrot reached them, Vimes had recovered; he had just enough
energy left to stare in horror at Cruces for a while, before hurling
the gonne against the wall, wrecking it completely. He stood and
made his way, unsteadily, back to the corpse.

Angua's corpse.

Carrot stood there, helmet off, turning it in his hands.

"She saved me," Vimes said hoarsely. "Jumped right in front of it.
Just like that."

"Cuddy's dead too, sir," said Carrot.

"Damn it all." Vimes tried to wipe the grime and sweat from his
forehead, but his arm wouldn't move properly. Blood caked his uniform.
"/Damn/ it."

"The Patrician's all right, though. Detritus has him up at the
University. Cuddy's there too."

Vimes stood in the filthy alleyway, over the body of a woman he'd
thought he might even be able to love, and put his face in his hands.
He didn't know how much longer he could stay upright.

"Come on, Carrot," he said, after a while. "Let's take her home."

They carried her back to the Yard, or rather, Vimes did, ignoring the
pain in his shoulder; Carrot, conceding the field, went ahead to clear
off a table and get some bandages ready, since his Captain was barely
coming in under his own power.

He fetched a basin of water as Vimes, wincing, laid Angua on the clean
white sheet over the table, and cleaned her fur as best he could, using
damp rags of bandage. Only then was Carrot allowed to see to his
Captain's wounds.

And then he left them alone.

Vimes sat for a few minutes, his head cocked to one side. He put out
his bandaged hand, almost touched her eyelids to close them, then
stopped himself. He turned, and let himself out into the front office.

"I'm going upstairs," he said, his voice dull and flat. "Carrot,
you...if there's anything left to handle, you handle it."

"Yes, sir," Carrot said carefully.

"There's a half a bottle of Bearhugger's in my office under the loose
floor-board. Throw it out, would you?"

"Yes sir."

Vimes, already shirtless, scratched at his bandage as he undid his
bootlaces and shucked them in a corner of his bedroom. He didn't have
the energy for anything more, and rolled himself up in his blanket,
wincing at the pain. He could at least pretend that he would sleep,
soon.

After a while, there was the sound of the door opening, and someone
crossing the floor. A cool hand touched his bare, bandaged shoulder.

"It's very difficult to kill a werewolf," Angua's voice said. He didn't
dare turn; he was probably just dreaming. "We don't drown, or bleed
much, and there aren't many poisons that'll do the trick. Fire will.
And silver. But steel knives won't. Iron pikes won't. And lead pellets
certainly won't."

He did turn, then, pushing himself up on one elbow to look at her. She
smiled. She was wrapped in the sheet he'd laid her on. It preserved
decency, and not much more.

"You've got scars," she said, letting her hand fall away.

"Yes," he managed.

"Me too. You fight dirty?"

"Yes."

"So do I. You ever lose?"

"No."

"That all you're going to say? Yes and no?"

He reached out, half-wondering if his hand wouldn't go right through
her. It didn't.

"Yes," he said, pulling her down.

The bedsprings went /glink/.

And quite soon, for Samuel Vimes and Angua von Uberwald, the Disc
moved.

And continued to move. Bread and newspapers be damned.

***

It was some time later; the sun was almost up in the sky. It was a new
day. The Patrician was still alive, and so, miraculously, were the
Night Watch. Carrot was, he was sure, Handling Things.

Dr. Cruces was dead. So was Cuddy.

Sam Vimes was not, however. And he'd had enough years as a Watchman to
count that as a blessing in the face of Cuddy's death.

Neither was Angua.

But she had stolen the sheets.

And she slept on his side of the bed.

And she was a werewolf.

And a vegetarian.

Vimes couldn't remember the last time he'd had a real vegetable, if you
didn't count the turnip filling in so many of Dibbler's dodgy meat
pies. He supposed that chips were 'vegetarian'. No, those were fried in
fat. Well, dammit, what was? Mashed potatoes, without gravy, although
without gravy mashed potatoes weren't really food - maybe window sealant.
Cheese pizza. Toast. Coffee. Possibly some of the more harmless forms of
curry. All of which were good things to think about if you wanted to
avoid the many problems at hand.

He lay on his side, a few inches from her, and spoke.

"It won't work," he said quietly.

"It'll be like all the other places," she answered, without turning to
look at him. "Pseudopolis and Sto Lat and Quirm, sooner or later
someone picks up a pitchfork."

"Or a sword."

"Never had a sword before."

"I'm too old for you. And I drink."

"You drank."

"All right. But you're a nob and I'm not. That'll raise eyebrows."

"You think the fact that you're my commanding officer won't? I'm a
werewolf, we're not very sociable people anyway."

"Angua, you do realise who you're talking to?"

"You don't like werewolves. I don't blame you. Most of us are horrible
people."

"I like you," he said. She didn't answer.

He rolled off the bed, and pulled on his britches. She watched as he
walked, stiffly, to the washstand, and drew some of the water up in
his hands, rubbing his face.

"You've got a scar on your back, looks like an arrow," she said sleepily.
He began to shave.

"I was knifed by a drunk," said Vimes, between strokes of the razor.

"Your right arm?"

"Stray ricochet, crossbow bolt off of someone's helmet during a riot."

"And the one on your hip?"

She saw the tips of his ears turn red.

"Bumped against a hot clothes iron once," he muttered.

"Shouldn't think you knew what one was," said Angua. He set the razor
down, aligned it Hubwards with care, and wiped his face, turning
around. For the first time she saw his bare chest in good light, and
she blinked. The marks on it weren't scars, really, so much as
/stripes/ - as if someone had bleached his skin in angular, irregular
lines.

"And those are from a dragon," he said, when he saw the look on her
face. "My reward for trying to save Sybil Ramkin from being eaten. They
don't hurt," he added, and ran a thumbnail down one of them, to prove
it. She winced.

"You see?" he said, coming to stand at the foot of the bed. "I'm too
old for you. I have no class, no style. I'm not charming. I'm not
particularly strong or handsome. I apparently don't eat vegetables at
all. I hate small talk. I am an imperfect human being. Carrot
would - "

" - show me several fine examples of dwarf bread, before trying to
court me by introducing me to the fine civic architecture of Bloody
Stupid Johnson," she finished for him. "I didn't choose Carrot. I chose
you."

"Then you were wrong. We have nothing in common," he said. But inside,
there was a small voice saying that nobody'd ever /chosen/ him before.
Things had just happened. If it came to a choice, he'd never been it.
But here he was. Chosen. Chosen against /Carrot/, for god's sake.

"All right. Say this isn't going to work, then," she said. "Why don't
we make it work today? And then we can try again tomorrow. After all,
it isn't so hard to keep it going for a single day."

"And then another?" he asked, though it wasn't really a question he
needed answered.

"Like in the Watch. You do your shift, and then you come back tomorrow
and do another. You get by with what you've got."

He put his fingers to his lips, an unconscious gesture that he probably
didn't even know he had. Angua did, though. It meant he was thinking.

"What are we going to do with each other, Angua?" he asked.

"Well, helping me find a spare pair of trousers would be favorite," she
drawled.

"Lance-constable Angua, fined five dollars for loss of trousers," he
said faintly.

***

We know the happy ending, even when the story is new to us. The brave
guard captain is knighted; the Watch receives a new dart-board; their
ranks swell to fill the new guard-houses around the city. The lady gets
her man. A courtship, a wedding, all in the normal way of things. Normal
for the Disc, anyhow, where a romantic moonlit walk can take on new
dimensions of terror.

But what about the other guy? The rival for the good Lady Angua's
affections, who graciously conceded defeat?

Well, you know what they say about Guards.

Eh?

But I thought everyone knew -

Well, all right, not everyone, but -

All right! They say that women like a man in uniform.

And Susan Sto Helit is certainly no exception.

END

Mwooooahahahaha...