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 Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 7:55 pm
She’d been off the grid for the better part of two days, holing herself up with Heather and Demy, drinking tea and watching mindless cartoons that were just a distraction from all of the things that she didn’t want to think about. All things came to an end though and at some points she had to think about her problems, she had to figure everything out and find a way to fix it. Not just fix it, but do what was best for herself, for everyone.
She’d finally just parted ways with the lieutenant and general, thanking them endlessly for putting up with her while she figured things out. She set out to her first stop, her clothes washed and fresh thanks to Heather’s good nature – even her shoes had been cured of their squishiness. The bag over her shoulder was rubbing into the bruise that had formed days before while she carried it around for too long, but all she could do was shift it and hope that she had a place to set it down soon.
Her hands dug into her pocket and brought out the phone she had been ignoring for the entire time, finally flipping it open and turning it on. There were a few seconds of delay, and then the notifications began to go crazy – calls, texts, voicemails. She sighed and waded through them patiently, frowning deeper with each one, until she was done and could use it for the purpose she had intended to begin with.
She scrolled to Chase’s name and hesitated over ‘send call’ – could she take hearing his voice right now? Instead she chose a text and made it short and sweet – I’m almost to your apartment, meet me outside.
Then she shoved it back in her pocket and continued on until she could stop outside the complex, beneath a small cluster of trees mostly out of the way. Now she just had to wait, which was hard, and each moment she stood there alone under the trees the more she was questioning herself.
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Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 10:24 pm
In those two days Chase had been worried, stressed into a small panic. Between constantly trying to get in contact with his girlfriend (she was still his girlfriend right? Oh god, he hoped so.) and tackling the immense piles of work that his father had shoved upon him as punishment for his outbursts that night. Still, he would check his phone whenever he had the chance anxiously waiting for her to respond to him. He knew that he had messed up, yet he didn't know how to fix it.
It irritated him.
He never liked to lose, to be in a position that rendered him helpless. He hated feeling helpless, the kind that you felt in the pit of your stomach where it twisted into knots and left you nothing but anxious for some sort of an answer. Every time the screen would illuminate he'd scramble for it, sending numerous papers every which way only to be disappointed when her name didn't show up.
He stopped responding to anyone else after the first day.
So when his phone lit up, he reached for it taking a second before taking a look at the screen. He didn't want to get his hopes up but when he saw her name he hurried to unlock the phone reading the message quickly. It took him less than a minute to pull his jacket on and get out the door.
He could feel his heart pounding as he stepped outside of his apartment. He paused, looking confused when he couldn't see her and it occurred to him that she meant outside of the whole building so he exited the complex and nearly swallowed his breath when he saw her.
"Kaia!" He called trying to hide his excitement. It was likely that she was still upset, he understood that but she was there and he could see her. That's all that mattered as he ran over to her.
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Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 10:39 pm
The excitement in his voice and the way he didn't just walk out to her, but run, made her heart sink. If the expression on her face didn't say that her presence was not a good thing, the way she folded her arms over her chest as if to put them between the pair probably was.
"Chase," she said his name in response to the way he had called out for her, but there was a lacking.. enthusiasm in it.
She looked rough. She hadn't been sleeping and though the crying had stopped after the first night for the most part, there were large dark circles under her eyes and her face was paled. She had taken this long to come to a decision and she couldn't rest until she'd gone through with it. There were nerves erupting in her stomach now though and all the things she had rehearsed, all of the things she'd known to say, they were all dying before they passed her lips.
"We should talk," she said softly, barely above a whisper, once he was close enough. "Or I should talk, and you should listen to me."
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Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 11:01 pm
He stopped a couple of yards away, having seen the look on her face. The one she took no care to even try and hide. He felt his heart drop and he quickly shoved his hands into his pockets, a habit his father despised, to hide his hands that hand turned into fists. To hide how the skin whitened as he clenched them so tightly that he left deep marks in his skin. It was his nervous habit.
"I figured as much," he responded automatically, emotionlessly. "I messed up," he stated plainly swallowing dryly was he waited for her to start speaking. "I," he stopped, his forehead crinkling as he frowned ever so slightly, in more of a thoughtful rather than sad way. He shook his head, "nevermind, go ahead. Talk."
Part of him was screaming that he start talking, that he pleaded with her that he had messed up this time but it wouldn't happen again. That he'd do whatever it took to make it better but her solemn expression stopped him from doing so. He'd let her talk, then take his turn.
But it hurt to wait for what he was sure would be her break up speech.
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Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 11:15 pm
It hurt, she knew it would, but she wasn't prepared for just how much. Could anyone be? One of the arms across her chest shifted until she could rub across the crack she knew lay just beneath her civilian glamour, as if it were physically paining her.
"Don't say that," she shook her head, even as her eyes dropped for a moment to the ground in an attempt to not look at the plainly visible struggle over his features. She drew them back up and forced herself to, though, before she continued. "We messed up."
She bit her lip and thought long and hard for a moment about how to start this. She wanted to lay it down gently, to comfort him at the same time she knew she'd be hurting him, but what would that accomplish for getting her point across?
"We're different, Chase. You have a life and a family and obligations to that, I'm just.. a Senshi of the Negaverse." There was a reason she'd decided to have this conversation out of the way of anyone that might overhear. "Your dad is right about some things, even if he's ultimately wrong about some too. I don't have a future in this world, not this part of it."
She dropped the hand from her chest and let it fall to her side instead. She leaned back into the tree, sighing as she did so, because she was no where near to done. She had to keep going and push through the pain that was rising up with every word she spoke. Her eyes fell to the ground now, though, because it was just too had to keep watching him.
"I tried to be Kaia, to be with you, to be in the light and be happy but your father is more and more demanding and you owe him things. I get that." She swallowed over the lump in her throat, trying to steel herself to finish this. "But then I'm alone, in the darkness, just waiting. I'm not Persephone, I can't live by the seasons." It was a long analogy, but she knew he'd get it. She had always used him as her shining knight.
She pushed herself off of the tree and glanced up at him again, watching him for one long, silent moment before she said the last of what was on her mind.
"I'm just Alkaid, Chase, that's who I need to be."
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Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 11:30 pm
He didn't react, which was probably worse than the emotional reaction she probably expected from him. "You've always been more than that," he replied quietly, amber eyes watching her. "And he was wrong, about everything," he insisted but his tone was flat, it was hard to tell if he meant those words or if he was just saying them because he thought it was what she would want to hear. But he meant it, completely and totally. He couldn't show her though.
His defensive walls had sprung up and this his lack of emotion, when he was usually filled to the brim was just a response where he tried to protect him and her. If she thought she wasn't hurting him, not too badly, then things would be easier for her. He hoped but couldn't ignore the nagging feeling in the back of his head telling him that it was wrong.
That he was hurting her even more than she was hurting now.
He offered her a weak smile. "I never wanted you to be anyone but yourself and I never wanted you to be in dark," he sighed. "But I want you to be whoever you need to be," he told her sincerely. So he stepped away from her, backwards, trying to hide the pain he felt constricting him as he tried to smile.
"Be whoever you want," the words came out harsher than he meant because no matter how hard he tried to hide it, he was angry and something made him wonder if there was anything more to her confession that she wasn't telling him. He hoped not. He'd believe anything she told him, true or not and if she said this was why they had to split up, then it was.
Didn't mean he'd like it, no he hated it.
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Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 11:45 pm
The smile was as much a slap in the face as the way he told her to just be whoever. Her teeth grit, not because she was fighting a smile like he had, but because she was fighting a frown. The hand she had dropped reached up and pressed against her chest again, where she was trying to hold down what felt like a black hole threatening to eat her alive.
"I know you wanted things for me, but they're things we can't have." She sighed and shut her eyes, letting her hand reach up from her chest and rub across her eyes. She was tired and strained and she hurt. He meant more to her than she could ever really explain, he had been more to her than she could say. Right now, though, she felt like his light was at the end of a tunnel and she had no idea if it was the kind that would save her or the kind that would crush her.
She didn't want to wait to find out if she could just be happy in the darkness.
"I was born in darkness, I'll be okay." She dropped the hand from her eyes and watched him as he started to back away. Part of her wanted to reach out and tell him that he was so much more than he let himself think, but that was counter productive.
"Live your life, Chase," she adjusted the bag around her shoulder, a restless motion that said she just wanted to turn her back on this before the hole swelled up and swallowed her entirely. "You always know where you can find me, if you have to."
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Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 11:55 pm
His obviously fake smile vanished when her frown showed. "You could have anything you wanted," he insisted struggling to keep himself in place, to keep himself from running after her. He wanted nothing more than to gather her in his arms and whisper that he loved her. But it wasn't what she wanted, or what he thought she wanted.
He had always wanted to help her realize that she shined so brightly that it hurt. It hurt to know that there were others, and would be others, would help keep her flame growing even when she didn't realize it was there. He wanted to be the one show her and save her.
That wouldn't be happening any longer.
He opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated and decided against it. The thing about darkness was that it could swallow you whole but the situation was bad as is. That kind of statement wouldn't help.
"I won't." His statement was simple, straight-forward and likely hurtful. He wouldn't seek her out, he didn't think she'd want him to. If he got hurt, he'd rather suck it up and deal with it than have her tend to him. For now. "But you know how to find me, just...do what you want," he side turning on his heel and beginning to walk away.
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Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2011 12:01 am
She raised her hand, almost calling out to him as he turned her back on her, but then she just let it fall and turned her head to the side so she wouldn't have to watch him walk away.
She'd hurt him, and he deserved to show it as much as she had over the last two days.
She forced herself to turn her back on his receding figure, to not look back, and began her slow and careful way down to the sidewalk that would eventually lead her back home. Each step hurt, each gap that she put in between them made her black hole pulse and grow.
She knew that she'd just given up a chance at happiness because they both needed to do things and be someone that the other would hold them back from. He needed to be an heir to the Black family, and she needed to be a dark soldier of Earth. They were both partially, but not totally, immersed in the worlds that kept those things apart - but only enough to drag the other one down.
Even as she took the steps that hurt, she knew eventually they would be the steps that had saved them both. She just had to keep telling herself that.
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