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Mei had given Delilah quite a bit to think about for the rest of the afternoon. What had started as a silly conversation and become a hard realization to the young woman that she was not alone in her thinking about the General who had helped them save Hannah over a year ago. What bothered her more was that Mei’s line of thoughts were literally the same as her own. That meant there was only one choice…

So the next morning, Delilah laid her cards on the table. She had sent Hannah a text asking her to meet that afternoon at the old swings they used to always play on. Someplace just the two of them that Delilah knew they would be alone this time of day. It was also neutral territory if this conversation went south. Neither of them would be trapped and if needed, they could just walk away.

So as she waited, Delilah sat on one of the swings, head turned towards the sky as birds flew overhead, drifting ever so slightly forwards and backwards with the help of her foot.

“Hey!” The soft sound of a familiar voice and the weight of another person sitting in the swings seemed to interrupt her sister's thoughts. It wasn’t that Hannah tried to sneak up on Delilah it was more so that she too was doing a lot of thinking on her way to the park and hadn’t registered that she barely made a sound.

“It’s been awhile since you asked to meet up here. Is everything okay?” With all that the raven haired woman had going on it was a bit of a surprise that she had some free time on the weekend.

Like her sister, Hannah too began toeing the ground beneath the swing and started swaying back and forth. The cold chains groaned in protest but she paid the metal links little to no mind.

“Yes and no.” Delilah said honestly as she pushed a bit harder with her foot, her head coming down to gaze over at Hannah with a weak smile. It was a clear look something was on her mind.

Licking her lips as if to buy one more second of time, Delilah started “I wanted to talk to you about something. Something that has been on my mind for quite awhile but I didn’t dare touch the subject because of everything surrounding the situation.”

Her head finally turned away and she looked back up at the stars. How many times had she gone over the words in her head. How many ways to bring it up gently and nicely. Well all of that went out the window as her heart raced. “Hannah, I’m sorry but I’m going to be frank. What is your relationship with the General that found me last year?”

“I don’t understand where this is coming from.” Just a few days prior they were reconnecting on the roof top then later having coffee together, why bring Benitoite up now? “I have not actually seen him since just before you and Shang got me out of that nightmare.”

Feeling somewhat curious but mostly defensive Hannah looked at Delilah with a steady gaze. “Why?” she asked pointedly. “Why are you bringing him up?” Did she have a run in with him recently? Was that the reason for him to be the centerpoint of their starting conversation?

Yep...wrong way to ask. Delilah felt like a brick just hit her in the back of the head. Smart move dummy. And they want you to be a leader?

Smooth.

“Honestly Hannah, it’s never left my mind since he and I spoke. I’ve just never brought it up because I did not want you to relive all that. We have never discussed what happened in that cursed place and I don’t intend to push the matter.” When her eyes looked over at Hannah, the worry in them was clear. There were little lines on the side that showed she didn’t sleep last night. If Hannah thought this was bad, she should have seen Delilah when she was missing. Who knew a human could run on fumes.

“But with everything going on, and the potential of us going into Negaspace, I wanted it out in the open. Between us at least…” She sighed, shoulders dropping. “Because there is a chance we could come across him and I need to know what is going on to act accordingly. Because though he helped us save you, I worry…”

For several long moments Hannah remained silent, not even the swing she sat on made a sound. Eventually she too looked away, fixating her gaze on an arbitrary piece of sawdust. “I’m not going to go run to him if that’s what you’re worried about. He’s a friend, or he was anyway. I don’t know anymore honestly.”

“What I can tell you is that Benitoite,” she made a point to say his name so he wasn’t forever referred to as ‘The General’. “He has saved me on more than one occasion. At least three times he has teleported me away from a battle when things got really dangerous and I’d be lying to you if I said I wouldn’t do the same for him.”

“But that doesn’t mean…” She quickly added to put to rest any idea on how reckless her previous statement may have sounded. “It doesn’t mean I will do so at the expense of anyone else.” Even though it would literally eat her away knowing she turned her back if he was hurt Hannah refused to put more in danger to help one. “I’m not so naive to believe that if I ran out to help Benitoite that you’d either try to stop me or you’d follow and I won’t put you in that situation. But now that you’ve brought him up I do think it is important for you to know exactly all that he has done for me.”

“There was one night, not long after the doppelganger roaming the streets thing happened, that he found me. I was scared and hurt and without any more magic to use because I had already expended it on someone else. Yes, he could have killed me… but he didn’t. You know what he did?” A mix of emotions played across her face when she then turned her attention back over to her sister to see if she might be able to guess.

Delilah’s face shifted to unreadable as she listened. There were two parts going on in her mind right then. The first wanted to believe Hannah. Wanted to believe that he would be one of the good guys on that side.

But then the other side felt like she knew better. Three times did not make a hero. Had he been anything besides a General...and a General for that long...she might have held out hope. But right now, she held her tongue and let Hannah continue with a nod as the only prompt.

“He teleported me to some place safe then left to go get a first aid kit from the store and when he came back he helped bandage my leg up. Looking back he had the perfect opportunity to corrupt me right then and there but he didn’t.”

“Please believe me when I say that I don’t have his contact information nor does he have mine. Every time we’ve met thus far has been happenstance or by pure accident. We’ve never talked with any sort of frequently and the times that we did were just casual conversation.” Hannah drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes in an attempt to calm her heart down a bit; a useless endeavor ultimately but she tried none the less.

“When I woke up at the Fun House, after being taken hostage, there were two lieutenants in the room with me. They kept asking me questions I didn’t know the answer to and because I couldn’t give them what they wanted… they didn’t torture me like the others. They just started kicking me; first in the chest knocking me over backwards then multiple times in the stomach. By the time they left.” She paused struggling to hold back the biting sting of tears. “By the time they left I was coughing up blood on the floor. That’s when Benitoite found me.”

“Delilah…” Pink rimmed eyes finally re-opened and the pain she felt from reliving the memory could be seen clearly as if she were running a sharp blade over an old scar. “I can’t tell you how much I wanted to die right then and there. My chest hurt so bad it was hard to breathe and the room wouldn’t stop spinning from hitting my head on the ground not once but twice. All I wanted was for the pain to go away, to just fall asleep and it to just be over. But he,” One tear spilled from her eyes followed by another. “But Benitoite wouldn’t let me.”

Her fists were white as they gripped onto the chains. Her mouth had gone to a thin line and she was gazing at the hole her foot had made in the sand and dirt below the swing. She knew it had been bad. She had seen Hannah in the outcome. But to hear it…

In that moment Delilah wished she would have killed that agent.

“He’s killed.” She said in a monotone voice. “He’s corrupted and he’s killed. I want you to realize that coming from someone that is not a voice in your head. He may be human but he carries chaos in his heart.” Her breath she had been holding released in a single, long exhale. “Does he know what your abilities are? Does he know you can heal?”

That was when her eyes snapped back to Hannah’s face. She had expected the tears and braced herself for them as best she could. “I will never tell you how to live your life Hannah, you know that. You know I respect you too much for that and I trust you. I do not trust Benitoite.”

Finally she said his name and it was almost a hiss. “He teleports you out of danger. He protects you. Why? Why take you, a healer, away from the people who will need you most? Why protect a woman from this side? Because he cares?” Her shoulders came up in a shrug. “I don’t know Hannah. That’s why I’m asking. I want to believe that maybe he isn’t all evil but when two people I care about tell me two different things, I don’t know what to believe. And I’m scared he’s building up your trust to take advantage of you. Maybe not a corruption. Maybe something else…”

Her hands finally loosened on the chains. Looking down at them as they came to her lap, she could see that small parts had cut into her flesh. “I just...just be careful. Don’t let your desire to help people cloud your judgement…”

And this is why I haven’t said anything till now…
[allign=center]Somehow I knew…[/allign]
[allign=right]you wouldn’t understand…[/allign]

“My desire?” she bit out on a cold hurt laugh “Don’t let my desire to help people cloud my judgement? You say that like Order is without fault or folly.”

“And I’m going to stop you right there because you know I don’t give a rats a** about Order as a whole.” Delilah snapped, turning her eyes on Hannah very quickly as her feet caught her in a stop mid-swing. “I have seen how well someone trying to be a leader works out. None of them give a damn about us as a whole and if they say they do, they are either foolish or too new to understand the meaning behind those words. Oh no Hannah. Order is at as much fault as Chaos. There is NO black and white.”

Her eyes were large as she gazed into Hannah’s. “I don’t care who you heal otherwise I would have said something a long time ago. Every one of us is human with people who want us to come home. And I love you and I want to make damn sure you continue to come home. I have lost you twice. I will not lose you again!” Tears were forming in her eyes. One time was clear...the fun house. The other...was the morning Delilah woke up to find Hannah gone because of her illness. That feeling of loneliness would forever be engraved in her heart.

“I just want you to open your eyes and see not every act of kindness is freely. Our side, their side, humans, heck plants if you want to go there too!” She was crying now as she spoke. “And I don’t trust this Bentonite to be doing this just because he wants to be your friend. Maybe he will prove me wrong...but I swear to that friendship or not, if it comes down to it, I will put his spear through his heart if it means you walk away alive.”

Hannah’s lips pursed into a thin line unwilling to speak after that tirade. She was hurt and rightfully so. This whole conversation felt like an ambush against her own judgement. In the moment it didn’t matter that Delilah had sugarcoated her accusations with the ‘i care’ speech or declaration with how far she’d go.

Tears burned her eyes as she in turn bore holes in the ground in front of her refusing to blink lest they finally fall. “I’m sorry I’m such a burden to you,” Hannah finally said after a long moment's pause. Her voice sounded as broken as her heart and so she cleared her throat to regain some strength in her voice. “But I have to believe he’s capable of change despite whatever it is he’s done in the past.”

“I won’t drag you down with me.” The struggle to remain composed was quickly slipping as one tear fell into her lap, and then another. “I'm not going to continue to make you feel like you have to come to my rescue every time something happens or worry about me any more.” Hannah’s heart panged like it had been nicked with the tip of a knife. “If I’m wrong about them then fine, that’ll be my burden to bare not yours. But I won’t have you crossing the line on my behalf.”

“Death doesn’t scare me Delilah.” Lord knows she all but begged for it at least twice in her life.

Hannah rose from the swing causing the chains to rattle and the sound they made echo through the otherwise empty park. “Not as much as being alone.” Whether it was laying in a hospital room while her parents were at work, or her inability to find someone who at least tried to understand why the mission she was on was so important to her, it didn’t matter; alone was alone. It was clear after their argument how much their opinions deviated from one another. Where she struggled to maintain her neutrality after having been kidnapped by the negaverse it seemed her sister had clearly chosen a side.

Delilah’s face said it all. Those red eyes were the size of plates as she rose up from her swing as well. “Hannah I…” She started to say but bit her lip and looked towards the ground. There was a long pause before she took a deep breath, raised her hands up and gazed back at the woman. “No, you know what, I won’t.” Delilah threw her hands back in a way almost admitting defeat in the gesture as she looked away.

“You have clearly decided the path you want to walk and my words are not going to get through to you so I’m done trying. I came here to voice my concern as someone who has loved you a very long time. But if you feel attacked, then my apologizes. I was mistaken in my actions.” Her eyes turned back and gazed into the ones across from her. Gone was Delilah the sister. In her place was the leader, the stronger woman she was becoming to lead. Her actions affected far more than just herself now.

So with an even tone, she followed “As I have promised those who have asked for my help, so too do I you. I will not let you fall should we enter that portal. But I cannot save you from yourself. If you fear being alone so much then you should watch those walls you throw up Hannah. Those will drive away the people who love you and keep away those who could.”

And with that, she began to make a turn to go. This was clearly going nowhere but south.

She did not sob, nor did she turn around. Instead Hannah merely remained rooted where she stood listening to the wood chips crunch beneath Delilah’s feet as she walked away. This is what abandonment felt like, the fading sound of someone fleeing and there was nobody to blame but herself. It hurt in ways she never thought possible, like a piece of herself was being torn away slowly snapping one thread after another till only a fraction of herself was left standing.

Time and time again she had thought that she was doing the right thing by keeping quiet about certain things and avoiding others all together; but that had backfired in the worst possible way.

Only once she knew she was alone did Hannah reach into her coat pocket to pull out her henshin pen. What had once reunited them now forced a wedge between the two. “You were suppose to be my blessing in disguise,” my reason to keep living. All I ever wanted to do was to help save lives, but I can’t even save a friendship. Anger and frustration that her belief couldn’t have been more wrong built up till she finally reached her breaking point and threw the pen into the bushes bordering the playground. Had she never been given the pen, there was no doubt in her mind that Delilah would have kept her powered side a secret and kept her oblivious to the happenings because of the war for the same reasons she kept who she helped a secret; to keep the other safe. All of this was because she had been stupid enough to send Benitoite to go find Phact; and had she not of had that momentary lapse in judgement none of this would have happened.

Either way it didn’t matter now. The only person she had to lean on was gone. There would be no hugs or shoulder nudges. No walks together or patrolling on the rooftops of Destiny City. She was alone, save for Sheena; but there was no need to drag her into this mess too.

Not caring if anyone else found that forsaken object Hannah wrapped her arms around herself and headed home; let it be someone else's burden for all she cared.