She woke with a start, as she was almost used to doing these days, looking around and slowly recognizing the room around her. It was not one she had ever visited before a few weeks ago, when she was first injured and in dire need of help. This man, roughly her age, had taken her in and saved her life, because he turned out to know her more than she knew him. She had met him in the line of work before, but had no idea why he might want to save her life.

Gently had not asked him about it, not directly. She did not really talk to him at all, spending most of her time sleeping or just pretending to sleep because she did not know how to talk to him. He was always there, comforting her when she had nightmares, taking care of her injuries, feeding her, keeping her clean and healthy. She came to rely on him and was always worried when he broke with their normal schedule, though he had no idea that she was so aware of all his efforts. He assumed she was in some sort of traumatic comatose state or something, and he accepted that.

He was doing his best to take care of her, and help her to get better. It honestly seemed like that was all he wanted. And she was touched by it, but it was a strange feeling for her. Making friends always lead to losing them, and though she was great at pretending otherwise, she had closed herself off to others a very long time ago. Every relationship she had, beyond the long standing ones from before she was so jaded, was shallow and pointless now. In the scheme of things, she knew she was always alone, and would always be the only person who would take care of her properly. Except now this man, Captain Merlinite, was proving her wrong about a lot of the things she thought she knew for sure.

Taking a slow breath, Gently moved to sit up in the bed. Merlinite, Dennis, had given her his bed and she had been taking it up for quite a long time. She was starting to feel guilty, as well as restless. Her strength had returned, and she thanked her status as a Negaverse General for how well she seemed to be healing. She had no idea that Merlinite had helped her along the way, taking her when he first found her to some healing Senshi that had been able to ease her pain and encourage her healing. It was probably better that she did not know those things.

She hated senshi. More than that, she hated a knights. A knight was what had put her in this position of weakness in the first place. A knight that had tried to kill her, but failed. She hated him more than she could say, and wanted nothing more than to make him suffer. That was something she knew how to do, too. He was a bleeding heart, and he loved everyone around him enough to risk his life at all times, at the drop of a hat. He was that terribly noble sort that saw only the good in people, and held himself to some secret higher standard that nauseated her. She knew he felt like he was justified in trying to kill her, and she also knew that as far as he, and everyone else was concerned, she was dead. She remembered how he acted when he thought his family was in danger.

There were so many things she could use against him. Over the long years of their acquaintance, Painite learned many things about the Royal Knight Camelot. His family, for one thing. That bratty little senshi with the caution tape was his son, and the earth knight with the attitude was his wife. She also knew that the caution tape senshi was in some sort of relationship with a dark mirror senshi. They were all targets, and they would all pay for their role in her suffering and pain. She liked to inflict it: she did not like to endure it. But at least this was something she could use to her advantage. She had forced Merlinite not to tell anyone about her survival, so the White Moon, all her targets, would have no idea of the attack she was planning against them.

She had the time and the ability to make the greatest plan of revenge ever seen. And at the end of it, all her enemies in that family, including the Royal Knight himself, would be dead. Killing him would come easily once he was broken: killing all his loved ones would do just that.

But first, Gently had other hurdles to jump. Like standing.

Taking a slow, even breath, she moved a bit to test the limits of her body, waiting for pain to lance through her but surprised to find it only a dull throbbing. She had been able to heal quite well in the last few weeks, with Dennis taking such good care of her despite her orders not to let anyone know she was alive. She had not powered up at all, but she assumed her strength was still with her, even as a civilian, and that was also a large part of why she was so much stronger than she thought she would be. She moved from the bed, for the first time since her injuries, slowly moving her stiff and tense legs from the bed and over the edge of it.

She took a long moment to think about her next move, half sitting up with her legs dangling over the edge of the bed. She could do this. She could do anything.

Not certain she still believed that, but pretending she did anyway, Gently moved forward. She sat upright and managed to do so without her back imploding or her body tearing her apart with pain. That was not to say it did not hurt: it did, quite a lot, but it was the level of pain that she could deal with. As a warrior, she had gotten used to being badly wounded. It was the near death part that had caught her by surprise. Scooting closer to the edge of the bed, so put her bare feet on the floor and pressed down against her heels, testing her strength. Her ankles wobbled in warning, but she was too far along now to stop and go back to bed. That was the very last thing she wanted to do now, anyway.

Determined, goal set, Gently pushed on. She put more weight on her feet and took a breath, holding it as she made the final effort to haul her body up off the bed. For a moment she was standing, and she let out a triumphant yelp of success before she wobbled and teetered forward. She stumbled and caught herself on the bedside table, though it cost the lamp that was innocently sitting there its life. The sound it made when it smashed against the floor made her jump, but she would have to worry about the broken glass and ceramics, and the fact that she had broken Dennis’ lamp, later. She was on her feet. Yes, most of her weight was on her arms right now, but she was still upright, and moving.

One step closer to her revenge, she told herself. Every challenge would bring her one step closer.

“General!”

The voice made her jump, and she turned to see Dennis standing in what were clearly hastily pulled on sweat pants, no shirt, and very wet, half soapy hair. He was in the shower? She had not been listening, but he must have managed to hear the crash of the lamp, and came racing out to see what happened. His sweat pants were getting soaked through with water, as he had literally leaped out of the shower, which was still running in the other room, and pulled them on almost magically without falling down in his haste. He was standing a few feet from her now, looking surprised. That was an understatement, to be sure: he looked absolutely stunned, as if he suddenly did not remember how to function.

He did manage to blink, after a long moment, and that seemed to slowly reboot his brain.

“You’re up! You’re conscious! And you’re… you’re standing! Oh, wait, no! You shouldn’t be standing!”

He moved over to her and put his hand on her arm. She looked at him, awkward, then moved to put her arm around his shoulder and lean on him. He supported her, having to stoop a bit because she was shorter than him, but he did not mind too much. He was still pretty caught up in the fact that she was suddenly not only awake and aware, but standing on her own two feet. As wobbly as she might be, it was a profound change as far as he was concerned, as he had thought she would never even wake up, let alone stand and walk around after getting her back smashed in. He had gathered from her fevered mumbling and the things she said in her sleep that the Royal Knight Camelot had crushed her under his shield, but the rest of the details surrounding that night, before he found her crumpled and broken on the ground, were a mystery.

“Dennis…” Gently said, and he looked at her in surprise. She had heard him telling her his name? He wondered how much of his care she remembered, as he was sure he had babbled rather stupidly at times when he thought he was just talking to a sleeping body. He knew that talking to someone helped them when they were in a coma, or he liked to think that was how it worked, but he had never really put too much thought into what he was saying. Now he sort of wished that he had. She looked up at him and then smiled softly. “Thank you… for helping me. I know you’ve done so much to take care of me and you don’t really know me… I… I’m not used to… I’m glad you found me.”

Dennis listened to her and felt a strange tightness in his chest. It was strange how close he had gotten to her, when she had not even been awake to speak to him in return. It was not like he had gotten to know her, not really: he just got used to taking care of her, and had invested himself in making sure she survived. He was so happy to see her up and about now, though he was slowly encouraging her to hobble back toward the bed. She took a few steps, leaning on him heavily, but stubbornly refused to sit down just yet. Instead, she just held on to him.

“It’s okay, General. I’m happy to help… come on, let’s get you back to bed. We can start worrying about walking around and getting you back up to speed soon but I don’t think it’s a good idea to push yourself.” But what did he knew? He was definitely not a doctor, and had mostly just been making it up as he went along.

“Just call me Gently,” she said softly, “I’m not a General right now. And I won’t be until I’m well enough. I’m okay. I’m tired, but it feels good to be standing...”

“Uh… Gently. Okay… well…”

She put her hands on his arms and looked at him as she held herself upright, taking a moment to really take in his appearance. It seemed wrong to know so little about the person that was taking such good care of her, after all. She smiled at him softly, looking a little pale and shaky. He blinked at her, uncertain, and she moved to him, wrapping her arms around him and giving him as good a hug as she could manage. He was startled, knowing her largely by reputation alone, and not expecting anything like this out of her. But after a moment he relaxed and hugged her to him, sighing softly and closing his eyes as relief finally washed over him. He smiled softly and let the hug last until her felt her starting to shake, and then he helped her back to the bed.