Where did she mentally begin processing all this? At the fact that she had just watched her fiance beat the life out of three people or the fact the list of injuries he had sustained just seemed to keep piling up.
Sitting in the hospital chair, Lena’s face was in her hands as she tried to wrap her head around everything. This had been supposed to be one of their rare date nights. They had picked a place out of the way to try and avoid all of this mess and yet, no matter what, it always seemed to find them….to find him. This wasn’t the first time Lena had wondered if the Negaverse had a tracker on Xan. But he hadn’t seemed to be the main target...thank the heavens.
No, that had been something else completely. Her beloved was just the muscle the White Moon needed. He had the skills, the force...the stubbornness. All around, he truly was a perfect fit for his role as ‘The Bull of Mars.’ An unstoppable force…
“What am I going to do with you…” Lena mumbled into her hand as she rotated her head to gaze at the hospital bed. Where did she begin?
A busted lip. A nearly broken nose. Bruising and cuts all over his neck and shoulders. One ear wrapped up because of bleeding. Hands covered in gaze and antibiotics. Both of his legs wrapped, one of them with how many stitches again? Not to mention a bruised rib and more cuts and slices than the doctors had even dared to count.
Lena had seen something she didn’t know was possible this evening and it scared the life out of her.
And she hadn’t been able to stop it…
---Xanthus
It wasn’t the first time he’d been in a hospital, and not even the first time with Lena by his side, but it was the first time he’d felt… like this. He didn’t know if he should pretend to be sleeping, or just be quiet… because he couldn’t think of what to say when he couldn’t picture this turning out well.
Hell he wasn’t even sure he could explain what had happened. It was one thing to fight on behalf of others but he’d fought like he was possessed by his own summon, with more disregard than he’d had since…
“...I don’t know…” He answered finally, after what felt like an silence drawn out to breaking point. “....Whatever keeps you safe I guess.”
He knew it had been set off when he was afraid he’d lose her, facing an general who looked like he hadn’t taken a scratch, and after that… he didn’t know exactly. He’d wanted to protect her, and also to to help, knowing that Chaos was pulling a con… and there had been that little page offering her starseed in place of someone else like that was at all the answer ever… How did that help anyone? He wasn’t sure how he’d done any of it. There was no magic to his net or to his existence that said pain didn’t matter or that would let him hit with the kind of force where…
God he’d felt things give that shouldn’t give. Hands were fragile. His hands should have given first.
He just wanted to help…
“It was a trap from the get go… they were fishing. Corrupting doesn’t take that long so they stuck him on a hook and hoped someone else would offer themselves up, and they did... and… and it’s not an excuse or a reason… and I… I don’t know. I don’t know…”
---Lena
“Whatever keeps me…” Lena’s voice echoed back as her hands finally dropped completely from her face and she turned to gaze at the man lying before her. The sound of his voice now was so different from before. Booming. Echoing. Commanding the attention of everyone around. Now it was just enough for her to hear it…”Whatever keeps me safe?!!” The second time she said it though, her voice raised, nearly cracking at how high a pitch she hit.
“Well what would that be Xanthas? Because I don’t know anymore!” Lena was hardly holding back her screams and her tears. “Ever since I met you the entire world has turned upside down! I don’t even know what ‘safe’ even is! Was I safe before or just ignorant to all this going on? Am I safe now because I have the ability to protect myself or just foolish to think I’m more than a pawn in this…” There was a long moment in which she was silent, her green eyes glaring into his form as she felt fire inside her of her.
Finally she released it all with a sigh, one hand coming up to rest her forehead in. “I’m scared Xan. I...You changed out there. You changed and no one could stop you as long as they kept coming. I mean just look at you. No human in their right mind could take that sort of abuse and keep…” Her hands came free and flew in every direction. “Going!”
Lena was both animated and crying now. “You could have killed someone...YOU could have been killed. Xan I don’t know what I would do if...if I had to watch you die.”
---Xanthus
That hurt. Worse than he’d hurt when he’d come down off.. Whatever it had been. Some terrible blessing from the lady of Mars for all he knew. Because it was the second answer… that there was no ‘safe’ there was only being a different kind of target… and worse he’d hurt her. Frightened her badly, and he didn’t know what to do.
“...I don’t… there’s…” He floundered, heart sore trying to figure out what to say. “...This is the only place left. I’d send you away… as far away as I could if I thought they couldn’t reach you but this is the only place left and we’re the only things keeping it that way, and I don’t know what to do…. I’m terrified it won’t be enough. I’ve seen what it would be like if we aren’t enough… and I can’t…” His voice broke and he stopped. “And half of them are children. I met a Castor knight who didn’t even know how to throw a punch. And they’re all we’ve got…”
And all of that was closer than he liked to admit to what drove him to a breaking point. The terror that they weren’t enough. Of trying to be the piece that held it together but he wasn’t strong enough.
“I’ve never… it’s never happened before. I don’t want it to happen again… but I don’t even know how it happened. … I just didn’t want to lose you….”
And god he was -terrified- he had anyway.
----Lena
“Xan…” Lena’s voice broke as she rose off the chair and moved towards the hospital bed. Avoiding the tubes and wires, she slipped to sit close to his chest, a single soft hand reaching out to cup his cheek. “I love you. And that means you can’t just send me away. Even if in your mind it was to protect me. For better or for worse. Those are the vows you asked me to take with you. I planned to honor those from the start…”
Leaning down, Lena placed a soft, tear covered kiss on his forehead. When she picked her head up, her eyes were closed and her lips pursed together. “I just didn’t realize that maybe the man I agreed to marry is the mask after all.” Her green eyes opened and she gazed into the ones looking back at her. “That in reality, you are Kairatos of Mars….” The tears were silent, following without a sound or control as she looked away and let her hand slip from his side.
“And I don’t know who he is…”
---Xanthus
“I’m not… h… I love you. So damn much…” He didn’t know if he was crying, because most of what he felt was the bone deep ache in his heart, because he kept almost hearing that she was leaving him, the threat living behind the words and the pain and confusion. And he didn’t want her to but how could be blame her if she did? She wasn’t even wrong… he wouldn’t have called it a mask… or not consciously… but he knew how to be Kairatos better than he knew how to be anyone else. It had been the risk he’d taken, not picturing this as the consequence. And for a while it had been ok.
“All of me is real… what’s left of it. Everything I used to be before I was Reagar or Kaiatos got… wiped away. I can’t get it back. I’ll never get it back… all I get to do is try and rebuild, and sometimes I don’t know how, and sometimes I questioned if it was worth it, and then I met you… and you made it worth it. And you didn’t make fun of me when I forgot things, and… and you’re you. You’re what makes me want to keep trying to be better, whatever that means… but you’re also you. And I don’t want you to be anyone else no matter what that makes you decide, just that I hope you never have to do what I did because not once did I ever think it would feel like it cost this much.”
---Lena
The same words over and over again. The same logic she knew so well. The man she loved had no past before he entered this war. The war had taken everything from him that he had once loved. Every childhood memory. Every image of a friend or family member. Oh she knew in the logical part of her mind that Xanthas Goldman most likely wasn’t even his real name. But then...who was…
It was a question she had silenced over and over again since the birth of this. A concern she had looked for every way around including investigating in the idea of him taking her last name if it resulted in less questions when they had kids…
God the thought made her look up to the ceiling. Children. The one thing she wanted to share with him more than her own life. What would they tell them as they grew? Daddy doesn’t remember being a kid? Daddy’s parents are dead? How many lies would they have to weave to protect their children?
But there was no denying her heart. Her heart beat with his. This man...even as the bull of Mars...had come storming into her life and broken down every wall and means of self protection she had. Lena couldn’t imagine life without him next to her.
Leaning back down, even with his busted lip, Lena couldn’t help it. Softly she brushed her lips against the stitches used to patch him up. Softly she kissed him and pulled away before she couldn’t hold it back any longer. Lena felt herself drop onto that strong stress. Her eyes closed and she couldn’t hold back the sobbing tears as she cried into his shoulder. “I thought….I thought…” She was nearly hiccuping. “I was going to lose you…”
---Xanthus
“Hon, no…. Nonono….” He tried to put an arm around her, cursing under his breath at tubes and wires. “...I’m trying to hug you, it’s very difficult and that is entirely my own fault…”
He had nothing else to offer except to point out the absurdity he had wrought on himself. “I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry, I’ve been trying to take fewer risks… I really have. I don’t know what happened and that scares the s**t out of me. I promise I’ll do everything I can to find out what it was and -not. Do it. Again.-. I promise. I mean… I don’t know… I just don’t. But I’ll tell you anything I can. About anything.”
---Lena
Picking her head up, Lena knew she had to look like an idiot. A blubbering mess of an idiot. But that didn’t matter right now. Not in the lease. “You don’t try to move too much. You have enough wrapped in plaster and bandages that I don’t know if they can get any more on you.” Lena was trying to smile and failing. She was still tender...still hurting on the inside. There was a part of her that ...broke this evening.
“Xan…” She shook her head, one hand going back to his face and then trailing down his arm. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Lena whispered through another near hiccup. Her hands went down to his, lightly touching the wrappings around his knuckles. The touch on her finger tips diverted her eyes to look at them once more. Within her she could feel her breath catch and her heart nearly stop. “So many depend upon you. So many know your strength. I...I can do nothing but watch. For that I must apologize to you...I must look silly as your partner out there…”
---Xanthus
“No! Hell no! If anything I want you there. Mars is an planet of war and fire. Cosmos is Rebirth, and hope, or she’s become someone who stands for that, and people need that, and not… not the way some people treat it. You’re not the one to promise peace and platitudes and then someone into my swinging fists. You’d deal with them yourself, assuming I didn’t get there first. If people don’t know your strength it’s because they aren’t paying attention.”
He reached to try and gently squeeze her hands, as much for his comfort as hers.
“They won’t even listen to me. They don’t respect me… there was a piece of the code in what used to be the knight academy, it was giving into corruption this long after the fall… and it was… whispering… saying twisted things. The kind of thing that were the favorite Koolaid flavor in the rift… and no one listened to me, and dammit I tried. No one believed me. Not even when I was verified. I don’t know that many of them will ever see me as more than a pair of fists. Except you. And I don’t care if they never see it because they’re the ones losing out, but I need you. I need you to be my anchor, because you might as well already be my Rebirth, or at least you’re someone who’s made it worthwhile.”
--Lena
Lena didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry. The sound that came out of her was a strange failed mix of both but her fingers still slowly and tightly curled into his hand. “Xan…” There was a softness, a crack to her voice that a woman could really only make when her heart was so overwhelmed it was trying to break from her chest.
“You can’t make those who don’t want to see the truth listen…” Lena finally said as she slipped herself closer to him to rest his hand in her lap. “Just like you can’t choose who you fall madly in love with.”
“Put your mind at easy, my love. I’m not going anywhere even if you tried. I’m scared Xan. I won’t lie to you.” Her empty hand reached for his face. “I’m scared of our future. I’m terrified to think that tomorrow might be my last day with you…” The words made a new round of tears roll down her face. “But if it is, I would rather it be with you than without. So I will follow you to the ends of the Earth and beyond. If others won’t listen, find those who will. It takes all types to win a war…”
She let out a long sigh and seemed to give a sad smile. “You will never be a politician. You are too hot headed to sit by and do nothing. And politicians see that as a weakness. Yet they will never be willing to do the things that need to be done on the other side. Always sending someone else…”
Lena looked away. She had seen the woman she spoke of. Hver was the short form of her name and she could never truly remember her full wonder. But she had been standing there with a General talking...she had sent that foolish little senshi back to them…
Lena’s eyes closed. They both came from the Cosmos and yet, they were different. Whoever that woman was...Lena didn’t believe she could ever do what Kairatos did. She would never get her hands dirty…
“Xan, when you get out of here, let’s go on a vacation.”
---Xanthus
He thought about that for a moment, thought about the shape of the world and everything in it, and what and who he was fighting for, sitting with her eyes closed trying to hold onto the pieces of her world rearranging themselves every damn day, away from whatever picture she’d had before.
“...Yeah. Yeah that sounds like a great idea. Let’s do that.”
Sirene Naiads
