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 Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2011 12:01 pm
In the aftermath of the Surrounding's restoration, things had been quiet. Normal life had resumed, like always; Elke had homework, and she'd attacked it with a vengeance. He'd gone back to work, picked up a few extra shifts later in the week to make up for his absence due to "family crisis," but he'd made it a priority to spend time in his Outpost before he even went home. Restoring it, as much as he could in the limited time, setting to rights what had been wronged. He cleaned up chip wrappers, food stains dried on tables... blood, in some places. He walked through empty rooms, near cavernous and seeming almost strange for their lack of noise, and he felt a little more peaceful as he did. Leo Outpost was made to house visitors, yes, but only ever of their own volition. To have it back in his hands securely, even in such a state as it was, was a relief.
But it was one of his only sources of relief as of late. They'd won; excellent. That was a victory, and not to be overlooked. The Negaverse had been thrown back, and the Surrounding was stronger than ever before. The White Moon, too, was more steadily their ally, and with the passports that had been handed out, he knew they could call on their friends in times of dire need again. On that front, Leo had no dissatisfaction.
No, his problem was... personal.
As he paced the length of his bedroom, his brow furrowed, lips marked a straight line across his face. Virgo. Elke. They'd talked, and he thought he'd gotten through to her... he'd thought she understood what he was getting at when he confronted her. Grayson didn't like confrontation. He would avoid it at all costs, if humanly possible. But when his girlfriend was also his Captain, when she neglected her personal duties to put her life on the line time and again, even though she knew how contrary that was to her role -- even though she knew that she directly defied her duty to do it, how much it hurt him, bothered him, devastated him -- Grayson and Leo blended.
And all of him was angry, and all of him was hurt, and all of him was feeling betrayed. She'd promised to do better. She'd promised to try to change.
And then she'd turned right back around and done exactly as she always had, and he'd thought he lost her again.
Hand curling around his phone, he sat down on his bed, gaze searching far past the window he looked out. It had been days; it was time to talk, again. To see if he could get through to her. To try to make her understand.
The call didn't connect -- she must have been busy -- so he left a short message.
"Please meet me at my apartment. I need to talk to you."
And then he closed his cell phone, anxiety and disappointment churning in his stomach in equal measures.
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Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2011 12:53 pm
Elke's return home actually went surprisingly smoothly. She hadn't expected it to be quite as easy as she found it; not when she could have ended up being sent right back to school, or lacking her Pop's expertise with mathematical matters. Instead of heading right back to Meadowview the night after saving the world, she ended up being sent back to bed, which was a good thing because she slept from six until nearly five in the afternoon. It wasn't hard to see why she was so exhausted, she supposed. She barely ate anyway, but the guilt of leaving the civilians on the Surrounding had driven her small appetite down to almost nothing. And then she'd been keeping long hours, sleeping for two or three hours when she had a down moment, the blurry exhausted feeling becoming as much a part of her as the despair that had settled in like a dark storm cloud. Waking up at home, in her own bed, and going downstairs to sit with Dad and Pop was sort of like... an acknowledgement that everything was going to be fine. It really felt like it, too--things settled back into her normal routine, she was welcomed back into her lunch table group with open arms, she impressed her teachers with the full six weeks of homework fully completed--until she got that ominous voicemail from Grayson.
She'd been worried about him, a lot. Usually a day didn't go by where she didn't get a text from him, and she'd been trying to talk to him--sending a text message on their civilian form, since she had decided she was going to boycott being Virgo until she had her real life back in order.
Real life. She felt almost giddy thinking that, despite the heavy rock of apprehension that had settled in her stomach at Grayson's dark tone. For six weeks, being Virgo had been her real life, and real life had been horrible and horrifying. But everything had come out okay. She'd protected the Princess, she'd led the way in the attack that protected Sol System from the reality of a shattered Surrounding. What did she have to worry about now? That moment before the Sailor Galaxy Attack had happened, it'd felt almost like the days when the Zodiac had been whole... And it was getting closer. Cancer lived again, there were Knights--knights!! She didn't know what to do with them, maybe she'd talk to Lina and Babylon and Camelot--and things just.
They seemed so much better. She'd done well, she thought. Whatever he had to say was probably just bad news about Paul. She nodded to herself and let herself into Grayson's apartment, crossing the silent living room and peering into her boyfriend's bedroom. "You wanted to talk to me?" Her smile faded, a confused look taking over. What did he have to look so sad and disappointed about?...
Well, maybe he just wanted to talk to her about something that was bothering him. She was sure that was it.
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Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2011 1:15 pm
It felt a little weird to be back in his civilian clothes. Paul was out, would be for most of the day, so he wasn't worried about them being walked in on... but it was still strange. He was perched on the edge of his bed, looking down at his scuffed converses, when Elke came in. He wasn't used to feeling strange in his own clothes; these were his favorite pair of jeans, after all, and he was more than passably fond of this turtleneck. This was his look. This was... Grayson.
Funny how he was a lot more comfortable as Leo than he was as Grayson anymore.
Linking his hands in his lap, he looked up at her, but his expression was serious, quiet. It wasn't desperate and upset like the last time they'd spoken about this; this time, there was a bit of resignation there, and a calm that betrayed his weariness of the subject.
"Yeah. Sit down, please," he added, patting the bed. Quiet, quiet Grayson. He took a moment to gather his thoughts, trying to think of how he wanted to express what he was feeling without sounding confrontational, when he just said, flatly, "I thought you were dead."
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Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2011 2:43 pm
He looked uncomfortable, why did he look uncomfortable? It wasn't something she pieced together with considerable thought, looking at cues; she knew Grayson, had known him for two lifetimes, and he was as familiar to her as her own face. He was nervous, and it showed because he was quiet, because he consciously did not touch her, or stand up, or smile. So her smile had gone entirely, replaced by a perplexed frown. What was happening? Had he lost his job because of the absence?...
She settled next to him on the bed, an awkward and uneasy perch. Maybe he was unhappy because she was still only seventeen? She knew Elzo had probably been having sex since he knew what it was, and she knew Avery certainly wouldn't have let this go on this long--part of why she was sure Grayson was much better for her than her ex-boyfriend. She hooked her hair behind her ear, and frowned.
"I'm sorry," she said, sounding a little surprised. It made sense if he'd thought she was dead, although she didn't understand quite why that was. Chronos would have ceased to be able to sense her. Elke was sure that hadn't happened, and she'd never really been in any danger. It was just Hematite, and Hematite was a coward. "I didn't know you did, or I would have apologized sooner, Grayson. I'm fine, though. What's wrong?"
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Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2011 3:00 pm
That was it? She was sorry?
She was sorry, because she didn't realize that her tumbling off the Surrounding in the middle of a battle royale would equate to him her death? He'd never heard of someone falling off the Surrounding and surviving. He didn't even know how she'd done it, and he hadn't actually sat down to really think about it -- she'd gone off the Surrounding with an enemy, and they'd both come back. She was alive, and he was grateful for that. But she saw nothing wrong with what she'd done.
She never did, and that was the problem. He tried to explain it to her, he tried to make her see what she was doing, and she just.. didn't see it. Whether she liked it or not, she was Innocence. She was the shield, she was Chronos' perfect protection. She was supposed to hold the damage and refract it, not... throw herself on the front lines, disregarding her own safety. She'd directly engaged what, a Negaverse general? Someone had mentioned that she'd been fighting a general, or someone close to it in power. There had been literally at least five White Moon senshi to every Zodiac, plus knights.. someone else could have taken him on. Had they, she wouldn't have disappeared for hours. She wouldn't have left Chronos without a shield. Newly awakened Knights wouldn't have had to cower around their Princess while they were attacked, as helpless as lambs for the slaughter, because they hadn't had any training.
He felt that she'd failed them, as a Captain. He felt that she'd betrayed him, as a comrade and as his girlfriend. But he didn't know how to say that.
His hands curled into fists on his knees, and he looked down at his nails, filed down and clean. "You really don't know what's wrong?"
This time, there was not only weariness in his voice, but a tinge of bitterness. "Really, Elke?" And then a pause, and he asked, "So do you ever listen when I talk to you?"
Unnecessarily harsh. He bit the inside of his mouth, refusing to look over at her, because he knew if he did he'd just want to apologize and take it back. But he couldn't take it back.
If he took it back, the same thing would just keep happening. Over and over and over again.
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Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2011 3:23 pm
Her reaction wasn't as a Captain, although it should have been, probably. It wasn't as a Zodiac, either, although that would have been appropriate too. Grayson's girlfriend gritted her teeth, clenched her hands on her knees with her fingernails digging deep into the soft flesh under the kneecap. "Yes, I listen to you whenever you talk, even when you're being a jerk," she said. Whenever had they even talked about the very remote possibility that there might have been Negaverse agents on the Surrounding? They'd never even discussed it, the closest most relevant thing was when they'd had that argument over how she didn't respect or trust the Zodiac, but clearly she did. She'd trusted them to be able to look after the Pages while she protected the Princess and fought off an enemy that was too strong for most of them to even dare confront. She hadn't coddled anyone and forced them to stay back on the sidelines. All she had done was distract a murderous enemy from the baby pages, freeing up the Zodiacs who had offensive attacks to try to take down the monster.
So it probably was understandable when her reaction turned frustrated, and she clenched her hands around air as she said angrily, "No, I don't know what's wrong! I protected the Princess! I didn't coddle anybody, and I didn't die. The Princess didn't stop sensing me, how could I have been dead?"
Elke forced herself to calm down, teeth gritting as she took slow, deep breaths. She had to be calmer, had to be more sensitive. Grayson was probably just stressed out. He had lost boyfriends before, maybe it was just stemming from that. "Hematite murdered all of us," she said. "He helped Charonite kidnap the Princess and tie her to a bomb and he killed all of us. And he was coming to do it again, and we had little pages, with no experience and no idea what was going on. I never left the Princess without a shield. I don't understand why you're upset at me..."
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Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2011 4:57 pm
And there she went. How she got all of that from the one question he asked he didn't know, but that seemed less important than the fact that she immediately resorted to hurling names at him and reminding him of things that he obviously knew for himself. Maybe he was being a jerk, but she wasn't exactly doing herself any favors in preventing him from acting that way. She was treating him like a child, once again.
He was well aware of how they'd first died, who was responsible for it. He didn't need her to tell him that Chronos had been protected, because he'd been there during the battle -- he was the one who has watched over her until Virgo returned. He knew, damn it, what had happened.
He also knew his Captain's apparent quest for vengeance had left them all wondering if she was going to return at all, and she seemed to think that was fine because she'd managed to come back.
It wasn't.
"Do I get to talk?" he asked, quietly. There was anger thrumming under his words now, a foreign note to his voice. "Or are you going to keep telling me how it was? Because I can explain myself, Elke, if you'll listen."
This time, he did look at her. But there was no warmth and sensitivity in his face; he was frustrated, just as she was. "So are you going to listen? Really listen this time?"
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Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2011 1:13 am
Elke's expression had long gone closed--she had hoped explaining that it would be enough, that he would understand, but what she saw in his face didn't seem very promising. The space under her kneecaps had gone numb, pressure digging into the tendons there until blood couldn't flow through it, but she'd been chewing her nails to less than nothing since the Zodiac had returned from space, so there was no blood. Just what would be bruises later, she would find. "Yes," she said, the single syllable bitten off at the edges, discomfort, worry and fear mingling with the anger that she felt was justified.
She hadn't done anything wrong. Why was he snapping at her?
The olive-green eyes dropped back to the table and she hunched up, shoulders pressing through the material of her shirt. She didn't understand, she'd been doing well, she had trusted the Zodiac like he'd said she should have, and she'd kept a strong enemy back. It wasn't the problems from before setting him off, not if he hadn't told her yes, she was right. Because she had been trying--was it just not working? Maybe she should drop the Captaincy. Maybe she should just...
"I'm listening," she said, trying for curt, but the insecurity was welling up and she wasn't sure how it came out, other than confused.
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