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 Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 6:54 am
This should have been the point where Jude flipped right the ******** out. Calling him a woman was worse than reminding Hero she was a woman. Way worse, one would think.
He merely started on another cigarette and waved the hand not retrieving it like that alone cast any worry over it far, far away. "I already knew I was a woman. Someone told me something I think is true, about how the greatest thing a man's love can create is a woman's love, but a woman's love can withstand anything."
I love you, Aries is what he meant. In a way, he'd just said it.
In a way, he was about to say it again when he asked something he wouldn't have bothered with if it were anyone he didn't love under these circumstances:
"What's wrong with you?"
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Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 7:00 am
"Nothing." You. "I'm fine."
She had crossed her arms over her legs, then restlessly rested her chin in her hand. Then sat up again. After this little irritated routine, when the silence stretched out between them again as a long rolling plain, she said: "I believe that two people can love each other to the depth and breadth their souls can reach and still find no -- no joy." Now she sounded formal. "I believe you've had very little joy of me."
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Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 7:05 am
Smoking cigarettes was bad. Swallowing them was much worse.
Luckily, he managed only to gag, cough and finally throw the thing somewhere off to the right. It didn't set anything on fire, so it must have been fine.
"What? I--What?" Disbelief was the main factor in his voice. Complete, utter disbelief because-- "How could you even think that, Hero? You are the best thing that ever happened to me."
Things he regretted saying? Yeah, there was one. Not because it wasn't true, or at least he didn't think it wasn't. Certain things just didn't need to be said right now. Mainly, things that would ruin the entire 'master plan' he'd devised that was, in the end, for the best.
One day he'd learn to shut up.
For the best.
It was all for the best.
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Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 5:42 pm
Thankfully, Hero Barrett could lie too. For a good cause. And switch her expression from fathomless to a vaguely sad, crooked smile of resignation, lifting her chin to look at him. His immediate disbelief had been open, charming. Too charming. Overly charming. "That makes your life sound like hell."
The smile remained, fixed. Certain things didn't need to be said right now. Not with the master plan. "Jude." His first name? "I apologise for all the ways in which I've wronged you. I also release you from the extraordinarily dubious honour of having to be my lifemate." It was all for the best. She got up off the cinderblocks and offered her hand, to shake. "I remain, as ever, your captain. And. If I may. Your friend."
You are my body, my blood.
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Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 6:17 pm
"You... what?"
Jude didn't lie much because he wasn't good at it. He didn't plot much because he was even worse at that. His nature was a forward one, blunt, call-it-like-you-see-it variety.
What he saw now was making it hard to remember this was for the best.
All for the best.
It took a strong man, in some sense of the word, to do what he'd done. Fact was, it took a stronger one than that--a stronger one than him-to just shake hands, smile and walk away.
He wanted to, but he couldn't.
"Don't say that, Hero." Which part he spoke of she'd have to guess. "Everything I..." And she was offering her hand, and he stared at it. Eventually, he did take it, but it was only to pull her closer and press his lips against her forehead.
When he started hugging her, he wasn't sure. When he began speaking again, he couldn't tell you.
"Everything I've done is what's best for you," he whispered. "You'll understand it one day." The single step back wasn't far at all, and the past was coming back to haunt them again.
"You're the sword, not the shield, Captain. One day you'll realize it."
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Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 6:32 pm
For long moments they were holding each other, and for those moments it was all right: they were back to how they had been, for better or for worse, it was all right. It was okay. Her arms wrapped around him and they stood together in the alleyway, just like that, and it felt like an extraordinarily long time. She didn't say a word. Somehow Hero -- who always said something -- refrained. Not even a mention of Corinthians.
Eventually she did mutter something into his chest, but what it was was lost to time and possibly him.
Eventually Hero detached and flipped her henshin pen out of her pyjama pocket -- with a Aries Zodiac Power, Make-Up! she was in her soldier form once more, and she stood back and...
... saluted him, crisply.
"Keep safe out there, Sagittarius."
And then she strode out of the alleyway, turned the corner, disappeared.
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