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Khaldun hopped through the torn remains of an apartment window screen and shut the broken window behind him. His dark clothing blended with the shadows. There was enough glass on the floor to elicit a crunch under his sneakers as he moved from room to hallway, but he wasn't bothering to be quiet now that he was inside. He'd be out of here almost as fast as he'd managed to break in. No one would suspect a thing.

Not that anyone was around to suspect anything.

This was - had been - Alkaid's apartment. He'd been living there up until she had left, but the place had been abandoned for quite a while now. It felt like it had been weeks since he'd last seen her, really seen her. And even then... he didn't really know what to think. Her ascension had changed her, till she was no longer the Kaia Delaney he thought he had known. She was different.

Unconsciously he held a hand to his chest and winced at the sharp pain that responded. Really, so was he, now.

Bandaged hands reached out to pry one of the many first aid kits from its niche in the living room, but it was a slow process among the aches and pains he'd sustained in the battle recently. He'd take one kit, maybe two, and get going. They'd last him a little while. It wasn't so easy to get what he needed any more.

He heard the dainty click a moment before he was blinded in the light. Caught red handed. He looked better in the darkness; it hid the burising that swelled along both sides of his face and dipping below the collar of his shirt, the huge bandages that were plastered like patchwork anywhere from forehead to jaw to neck. It looked like he lost a fight to a freight train. Poised between conflicting fight or flight, he remained frozen with the first aid kit in his hands for several seconds before he could pass a glance toward his observer.

Kaia stared at him like a wax museum sculpture, a facsimile of a person. How long had she been there? He didn't know if she was angry. There was no indication on her face that she felt anything at all right now. His own look was tired. Surprised, but mostly tired.

"Kaia..." No less than ten sarcastic replies came to mind at the single remark, but for once he couldn't bring himself to speak any of them. All the fight had gone out of him lately. Not everyone's first religious experience was a good one or a happy one. His eyes slowly followed Kaia's downward, then came sharply back up. His voice tried to project as much neutrality as it could. "Yeah."

Then, a beat, as he turned his head away and dreadlocks obscured his expression. "I'll just... through the front door this time..."

"Kaia, I'll be fine, Captain Mica already-" But she wasn't going to have any of that, it seemed, and the finger stayed pointed firmly in the direction away from the door. Khaldun thought he could catch a hint of her old self, but Tanzanite came to mind and he began to shy away from that hopeful thought.

He shifted the weight of the kit from hand to hand and tilted his head up at the ceiling as he tried to think of an excuse. But he drew a blank. She knew his lifestyle; there was nothing more pressing but Negaverse work and if he any sort of time-consuming task there she'd probably have heard about it through the grapevine already. It was a very efficient grapevine. And then his chest seized mid-breath. He could have sworn -

No, it had to be his imagination.

"But it can't hurt to get a second opinion." His breathing picked up a little in panicked speed and he slouched over to the couch without meeting her judgmental gaze. He set the kit down on the fine layer of dust that had accumulated on the coffee table. A plume rose up to hang in the air by lamp-light. Khaldun just started twining his fingers together in his lap.

His shoulders sagged at first. In comparison to the way they'd left things, he didn't deny that on some level he was glad of the attention and the concern, whatever he could get. Even he couldn't help the echoes of feelings he'd had about her, just looking at her. But he hadn't intended to get caught up in all of this tonight. He was weighted down by too many thoughts to do any good at navigating his way through politely getting the hell out of here.

He made a big show of trying to get the top off, unlooping one arm at a time before slowly peeling the black shirt up and over his head. Once it was put aside, his hands came up slightly, wound with gauze, pushing hair back over his shoulders. More colorful bruising, more cuts, more bandages (these ones more crudely applied, as she had suspected). But Alkaid wasn't looking for those, if she'd figured him out. She was probably staring at the jagged scar he was sporting around his sternum. So, it was his job to try and draw the attention away.

"I know it looks bad, but I'll be fine in a week or so." He was trying to excuse the damages. Then a complete change of subject. He raised his head enough that he could look up at her. "Hey. If I'd known you were back, I would've come by sooner."

Few people had the patience for him lately, and he wasn't sure even Alkaid was among them any more.

"Oh, you know," he spoke dismissively, making an outward sweeping gesture with both hands that ended in a shrug. "Fighting wars. In space. Against Zodiacs. Just stuff."

"How long you back for?" He leaned back a little farther into the couch. It was weird now, that they sat next to each other and exchanged half-pleasantries. It was easy to be distant. He didn't know what to say or do around her, possibly even worse than before they'd acknowledged their feelings for each other. He doubted nearly everything he so much as thought, lately. Wouldn't it be easy to destroy what little remained, with one careless word? Maybe he already had.

It felt like he'd come full circle again, back to the early days when she'd helped him survive the consequences of his stupid, impulsive decisions. He was alone again, weak, and the world was more confusing and frightening than he could ever remember. That's when she'd been there for him. She was the one that taught him concern for others, which he'd in turn had for her. Still had, at moments like this when the old Kaia showed through.

He stared with a quiet longing at her as she shuffled through her supplies, but said nothing. He didn't bother to hide it when she finally turned back to him. Maybe he didn't realize how obvious it was.

"Kaia?" Now the longing look was gone, replaced by confusion. He was hyper-sensitive to her every subtle action, but something was very blatantly wrong right now. His fault too, judging by her expression before looking away. His hands hovered close to her in the initial moment of panic but pulled away after a few slow, twitching hesitations. Like they'd hit an invisible wall. All the courage he'd had once in his quest to win her over seemed to have evaporated since they had parted ways.

He straightened up at her request but continued to watch her closely.

"Don't scare me like that." His gaze fell darkly across the open first aid kit. "For all I know you need this stuff more than I do."

His eyes stayed fixed on the first aid kit as Kaia worked, and there were no more sharp pauses to distract him. The reminder that he was human and she was senshi usually preceded a wave of revulsion mixed with guilt. His feelings for her had always been shameful because of that. Every affectionate gesture was only ever shared where no other eyes could judge them - but really, the crime was only his, and it was his reputation he'd always been protecting. Maybe it was irony that they'd fallen out over the price she'd paid to overcome the thing she was. Some part of him wanted to drag up that hatred of senshi once again and blame all of this on them. Because it was familiar, because it was right.

Not any more, though. Everything he thought he knew was wrong. All of his mediocrity and failure over the span of three years had never been fraught with as much consequence as one small act of what he had thought was just common sense. If Tanzanite had wanted to silence him, then she had succeeded in that. He didn't know what to think, or feel. Kaia's statement garnered as much of a reaction from him as she would have gotten by describing the weather. Indifference.

"Good. I told you I never wanted to see you bleeding again anyway, so that's convenient for both of us." It was dawning on him that he'd been wrong to think that the Kaia he knew had vanished with the rest of her human attributes. He'd panicked and left her and the first time they'd really spoken in well over a month was when he broke into her home. Even after all that she hadn't thrown him out of her apartment. Maybe it was pity, even if she didn't know the half of how wretched he had become without her. She said she didn't need anything. He supposed he deserved to be included in that.

Okay, something was definitely wrong with Kaia. The hand that stayed pressed against his chest sent a rush of adrenaline through him. Khaldun wasn't sure what to expect when he looked back to her again, but definitely not the look of what seemed to be confusion and pain. A big reaction, an emotional reaction, and the intensity of it all couldn't possibly be just from the casual statement he'd made. She had the advantage in her glamour, looking and sounding as though nothing had ever happened to her. Maybe he'd gone insane, all that time back. Actually, he hoped that he had.

"I know. I know." Consequently, he wasn't putting up much of a fight on this. He'd lost everything else so far; he was already faltering trying to find his words. He could overlook it all now, he was sure of it. All the little things that had unnerved him before. He had nothing without her. He was nothing without her. Everything else about them aside, senshi spheres didn't lie. But why should she believe him even if he told her? He left her. Like an idiot.

"I don't know what I want," he finally admitted, turning his head away. "I always end up being wrong."