Welcome to Gaia! ::

Life had been surprisingly normal since Levi returned to Destiny City but that in itself was decidedly abnormal for his standards. It had taken some getting used to, that was really all he could say about it. Living in the same apartment and driving the same streets felt both familiar and foreign, like he was seeing everything through a new lens. Well, he supposed, like he was seeing it through the lack of one.

The first couple of weeks had been simply an attempt to get readjusted. He stuck to the diet they had given him during his stay away and began a moderate work out routine as a civilian at Chase's suggestion. Then came working from home in moderation and reintegrating himself into his job - with rules. He had limits on how long he could spend in front of his computer that were both a suggestion from his general and an expectation that he was imposing on himself. Moderation was not something that came easy to him but when his timer went off he had been good about finishing his email, hitting send, and shutting down for the night. Soon he was spending time in his office again; that was, perhaps, the biggest shock so far. They had gotten rid of his secretary while he was gone for a lot of reasons; he was sad to see her go but he knew that her presence would have ultimately been a distraction that he did not need from his recovery. It did make him feel decidedly alone among the crowd and as he walked the halls to his office or the cafeteria, he heard the whispers and rumors that followed him.

'Officially' his clients thought that he had gone to help his sick, elderly father recover from a bad fall. In reality, the office was full of planted negaverse agents that knew more than they should because of their privilege. He couldn't silence them; he had neither the authority or the energy to spare. So they whispered and he worked. It was as good a lesson as any in terms of restraint and coping.

Weeks grew to months and for the first time in a very long time, Levi began to feel like he was okay. His weight had leveled out and there was even the hint of muscles outlined under the cloth of his work shirts if he turned just right. Over half of his days were spent in the office and even on his toughest days he was thinking less and less about how much he wished he were dealing with his problems through the buffer of a haze. Chase trusted him more but he knew the tests were not over; his General was not dumb enough to just throw a lieutenant to the wolves.

And tonight was a night that he certainly felt like the wolves were coming for him.

The club was one that Levi knew well. In fact, he knew them all, drunk or sober. It was a big promotional event tonight that Levi had a hand in planning and the pair of men had showed up together at Chase's insistence. Levi thought it was so he could keep an eye on him but as CEO he assured him it was simply an act of credibility, showing face and all that. Either or, he could feel Chase's eyes on him no matter what he was doing or who he was talking to. It was peculiar, in a way, since he hadn't been this intense since the day he'd come home. So what about tonight was so different?

Levi tried to ignore it and dove head first into entertaining their guests. An older gentleman with gray in his slick, pointed beard invited him to the VIP lounge and, knowing he was a potential investor that they definitely wanted to schmooze, he agreed. Maybe if he got the chance to talk business, things wouldn't be so hard to ignore.They passed by the hulking man that stood at the entrance and pushed aside the curtains into the smoky, dimly lit lounge.

It was her laugh, first, that struck him. His head whipped in her direction without a second thought and his bright, focused eyes traced the familiar lines of her body as he could see it in profile where she sat, lounged and entertaining guests. If he had been able to think at all, if his lungs did not feel as if the air had been crushed out of them, he would have cursed Chase. It made sense that she was here, it did, but he should have known, right? How was he meant to prepare if..

"Levi, my man, what can I get you to drink?"

Dragging his eyes away from her was almost painful but he managed it and plastered on a smile for the sake of the other man. Business first. Maybe he would get lucky and she wouldn't notice him? If that could be considered luck.

"Just a water, Clyde. I'm a cheap date."

The other man seemed amused as he left to go to the bar and order but Levi couldn't move from the spot he stood rooted in. His eyes turned back to her and he watched her from his distance, just a ghost on the edge of her life.

Time froze around him as he watched Jade stand and turn in his direction; no one else mattered in the few breaths that he thought she was going to acknowledge his existence for the first time in months. The background was filled with chattering clients and hopeful stars that he tuned out and his vision zeroed in upon her as she excused herself from the crowd around her. Each step that she took in his direction made his heart thud dangerously against his sternum until it was beating so loudly that he heard it like wings against his eardrums. But she wasn't coming toward him, he realized, but staring defiantly at the door beyond him.

The wind in his sails waned and he deflated. His heart, though no less violent in its reactions to her presence, began to feel more like it was splitting itself in half. One pale hand rose to press against his chest as the world around the two of them slowly came back into focus. He couldn't blame her, he knew that, and it was wrong to just expect her to recognize his efforts and forgive him for years of neglect and lies because he was standing here.

Just because he knew that didn't mean he was going to let her pass him by without a word, though.

"Wait," the word was louder than he meant it to be and several patrons turned to look at him, startled. He cleared his throat and stepped into her path so that she either had to step around him or stop. His hands went out at his side to make passing him more difficult and his eyes, present and focused in a way they had not been in a very long time, narrowed on her too-pretty face. It was almost distracting to be this close to her but he held himself composed and ignored the way his heart was bleeding behind his sternum.

"I have some things I need to say to you." This time his words were lower, for her, but he didn't know if she would choose to hear them.

The words fell from her lips without so much as the bat of an eyelash and though he had expected them, steeled himself for them, he still was not entirely prepared when they crashed into him. A wince spread across his face like she had struck him with the back of her hand and for a moment, he wasn't sure what he could even say to her to convince her to listen to him. He opened his mouth and closed it again, trying to urge himself to speak but finding that his tongue sat heavy behind his lips, unmalleable as iron. Did he deserve her time? No, he didn't, but she deserved an answer for all of his ******** ups.

His lips parted to speak again when their would-be investor arrived back at his side, holding out a glass of water that the bartender had stuck a pink umbrella in for him. It was difficult to rip his eyes away from the ocean blues staring up at him but he managed it, letting them flicker first to the umbrella and then to the man holding it out for him.

"Ahh, thank you, Clyde." A forced smile pulled his lips tight as his hand took the cool glass but the older man seemed to feel the tension between them.

"Ms. Argent, it's good to see you," a head of salt-and-pepper hair dipped in a polite greeting, but his eyes were too curious as they swung back to the man that was supposed to be entertaining him for the night. A question lay there and Levi knew that his choice in that moment would show Jade his true colors; whatever he had to say to her would mean nothing if he put work before her one more time.

With that same tight smile, he gestured toward the open door.

"I'm afraid that Ms. Argent and I have some urgent business to attend to, Clyde. Would you mind if I sent Mr. Black to keep you company instead?" With the way the man's silver eyes widened just a hair, Levi knew the bait of a bigger fish had worked. He was already pulling out his phone before the other man ever nodded his approval.

"I suppose that would be just fine. I'll wait for him here." He offered Jade another dismissive bow before he headed for an empty booth, whiskey in hand.

[To Chase: Can you please intercept Clyde Dillinger in the VIP lounge? I have something to do.]

If his boss and CEO was going to be cross with him, he had no idea, but he would deal with the fall out of it later. This was as much about healing himself as it was trying to help her heal; if he never said the words they would just keep festering and all of this, he knew, would have been for naught. His hand shoved his phone back into his pocket without waiting for a response and settled his acid eyes back on hers.

"Five minutes, Jade, please. I'm not here to beg you to forgive me, I know I don't deserve that. You deserve some kind of accountability though."

"Okay," he nodded as he tucked his phone back in his pocket, making sure to switch the volume off before he did. If he noticed the surprise in her face, he didn't acknowledge it, but he had to assume that his willingness to put her first here was what earned him enough brownie points to tip this situation in his favor.

A year ago and he would have just grabbed her hand and pulled her along, let her wonder at where he wanted to take her. There weren't many places in a club that they could be alone without the backdrop of music or questionable surfaces around them but he knew he couldn't leave entirely - ducking out for a few minutes was much different than bailing on his duties. While he suspected Chase wanted him to face his fears, he also wasn't a man that put love or heartbreak above duty. There were a lot of factors he had to consider while navigating this new sober life.

"Come on, there's roof access by the staff entrance."

He took a big gulp of his water before he set it down and turned, leading her to the back of the room where bartenders and servers were filtering in and out. No one seemed to notice them or care as they slipped through the employee hallway and he led the way through the back door without even so much as a brush of shoulders with anyone else. He held it for her and then pointed at the ladder and its cage next to 'employees only' sign that hung outside.

Levi would have waited for her to climb up first but he did not think for one moment that Jade couldn't do it - she had outranked him ages ago in the Negaverse, after all. He did, however, want to make sure that the roof was a safe enough place for her to be in her civilian guise; he was a little protective even given their difference in strength. His dress shoes clinked against the metal rungs as he slipped into the cage and scaled the ladder with relative ease. As his eyes passed the threshold of the roof, it showed him a clean, well kept surface and he simply swung over the ledge without concern.

He waited, listening for her feet as she climbed up after him.

Levi drew in a deep breath of the night air, feeling the chill of it in his lungs and on his cheeks. It was crisp and sobering, even for a man who no longer gave in to his vices, and when she was finally standing in front of him with her arms crossed defiantly over her chest, he was able to look her in the eye without wincing. Seeing her here, just Jade, alone with him on a rooftop, made him realize that all of her harsh edges were covering up much more complex emotions that lingered beneath her skin. It made his heart ache for her and his hands twitched with the need to reach out and mend all the scars he had given her.

Instead, he shoved his hands in his pockets.

"I didn't think you would give me a chance so I'm sorry if this is a little rambly. He didn't tell me that-" he stopped himself and shook his head. He was shifting blame. "Nevermind, it doesn't matter, you're here."

He drew another deep breath and exhaled, steadying the race of his heart and thumbing at the keys lodged deep in his pocket as a way of distracting himself.

"I know you don't think that you were important to me and I know that it hurt you, to believe that. I can't even argue with you now that I'm here and sober and looking at everything that I did from a different perspective. I was sick, which isn't an excuse, but it's the only reason I have for making you feel like you meant less to me than you did." He wanted to look desperately at anything other than her eyes and the way those oceans threatened to swallow him whole; he had changed but she hadn't and he felt that familiarity calling to him as easily as she ever had. A siren and her sailor, only, he had drowned himself instead. A deep, frustrated sigh escaped his lungs and he shook his head.

"I don't expect you to forgive me, now or ever, and I know I'm not a good enough man to deserve you. I'm still sick, I still think about giving up on this fight every day, but I want to be a man that you would be proud of even if it's just... at a distance."

The dark, mossy brows furrowed over his eyes as they grew distant, recalling the tears in her eyes as she turned away from him that last night in his office, or the sound of her voice as it choked up on his voicemail message.

"I'm really sorry, Jade, that it took losing you for me to realize that I'm not invincible. I wish I had realized it before I gave you all that pain to carry. I can see it when you look at me and I don't.." he shook his head and swallowed around a lump that lodged in the base of his throat; there was a sting in his eyes that he wasn't expecting but he continued and ignored it, "I don't want you to ever feel that way again."

"I know, I know, I know," he shook his head as he repeated the two words over and over, trying to emphasize the fact that he knew he had ******** up. His hands balled into fists inside of his pockets but for the moment, he kept the heat out of his voice even as hers began to rise with all of the emotion she had not been able to unleash on him until now. He deserved it, he knew, but it was hard for him to stand there and take the lashes no matter how well deserved they were

"I just said I don't expect forgiveness, Jade, are you listening to me?" No, she wasn't. He could tell she was emotional even if what she was saying was the truth. Every muscle in his body was rigid, like he had touched a live wire and been locked into place. Even as she took a step forward, he couldn't move, couldn't look anywhere but at that anger and disappointment as it swelled in front of him.

Then she took her final jab and he felt the dam burst; his sharp eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched as he struggled not just with the disappointment he had been carrying for himself, but anger that had no faith in his ability to even survive this.

"I have to commit to it or I'll die, Jade. I think that's a pretty ******** good motivator." The words were harsh, carrying venom that echoed in his eyes, and as soon as they were released into the world between him he knew that this was not the way he wanted this conversation to go. His hands pulled out of his pockets and raised to rub at his temples instead, working away the headache this tension was already causing.

"I didn't want to argue with you. That was not the point." His hands dropped and as he let his eyes settle back on hers, he had some control of himself. A little. "I just wanted to apologize to you so if you're just going to stand here and scream at me then I guess I've said what I needed to say. I'm not going to beg you to take me back, or forgive me, or even try that stupid let's be friends line. I just wanted you to know that I was trying because-"

The words stuck in his throat and he was imagining it, he knew, but he could feel the weight of his cellphone in his pocket where he kept every gut wrenching voicemail she had ever left him. They were still there to remind him why he was fighting for himself and he listened to them in his lowest moments because something about the pain in her voice made his feel like it was a pale comparison.

"I was trying because of you. It was too late, and I know that, but do you remember that voicemail you left me? So much for you and I until the end?," he quoted it, put her inflection into his voice with perfection that said how many times he had listened. His arms went wide and there was emotion then, raw and unfiltered, pain and anger and frustration. "I knew I ******** up, then. You still saved me in the end, I'm not dead on the floor of some bathroom or - or a monster somewhere in the rift. So don't forgive me, that's fine, but I'm standing here because of you and I wanted you to know that you were enough. You were. You were the best thing a ******** up like me could have asked for."

The tirade of her repeated words were enough to silence him and his eyes narrowed on hers, still filled with all of the emotions he couldn't quite figure out how to get out, until he saw the tears welling in her eyes. It broke something in him to watch her crying again; for him or because of him, it didn't matter why. He couldn't take being the cause of her pain for one more breath. The lump in his throat swelled until he felt like he couldn't breathe and as she stomped forward to push him, he let her do it. His body shifted with the weight of her thrust like a buoy in the water because he didn't know what else to do but to allow himself to be her punching bag.

She deserved this moment, the tears and the pain and frustration, she deserved to make him see it and he knew that but... he still struggled with the sight of it. He wanted to stop her tears from falling, to comfort her in the way he had before he had ******** up their lives. His heart felt like it was going to shatter into a thousand pieces as he stood there frozen and struggling with love and letting go, with wanting her and wanting her to heal from him.

Unable to take the sight of it, he caught her hands and pulled her into him and closed his arms around her so that she needn't look up at him. He knew she might fight him, maybe she would take a dirty punch, but as civilians he was stronger and bigger and if he could stop this pain for even a breath then it was worth it. He tried not to think about the way her hair smelled as his chin rested against the top of her head or the way she fit against him as he pulled her into his chest. This wasn't about him.

"Shh, Jade," he mumbled against her pale hair, ignoring how selfish an act it probably was to try and soothe her in a moment of hysteria. It wasn't a right he had anymore but he couldn't stand by idly and watch her fall to pieces without trying to hold them together for her. "Stop it. Stop crying for me. We both know you've done that too many times and I... I don't want that anymore. I never did."

Only, with her so close to him, he felt his resolve breaking. He had been so committed to telling her he was sorry and that she should move on with her life but even if she hated him in that moment, the feel of her cradled in his arms was more right than he had felt since the day she walked out on him. He felt the sting of his own tears welling in his eyes as a mixture of realization and exhaustion but ignored them.

"If it will be easier, I'll leave. I promise. I'll give up all of this that I've built, I'll move, I'll disappear. Just.." he choked on the words as his eyes rose above her, staring up at the stars desperately. "Just tell me what you need."

Levi's heart was ripe with turmoil as she buried her face into his chest and clung so desperately to his shirt. He could feel her tears as they permeated the fabric, hot and wet against his skin beneath it, and though he felt more whole than he had in months with his arms wrapped around her, he also felt her heart breaking like an echo within himself.

It was a hard thing to let go as she stepped back from him and tried to rub at her face, but he let his hands falls away from her and settle at his sides again as he stared down at her, wordless and confused. He didn't know what to say; his heart thudded hard against his sternum as she admitted that she missed him, even if it was overshadowed by the knowledge that she hated him for it.

"That's fair," he said softly, "I hate myself most days, too." It wasn't self-pitying, or an attempt to belittle himself for a reaction. Levi was more aware of himself and his actions than he had been in a long time and with that came an awareness of everything that he had done and everyone that he had neglected. His love for her was unyielding but even this moment was selfish. He hated himself for that too. It was the only reason he didn't tell her that he loved her, or that he missed her, even if the words were teaming inside of his head. It wasn't fair to lay that on her too.

"I don't know what I can do to make you feel better. If you want to hit me, you can do that, or if you just want to keep ignoring me then that's okay too." He shrugged, defeated, and buried his hands back into his pockets. He seemed more okay than he felt but if she knew where to look, the purse of his lips and tightness of his jawline were always tell-tale signs of his discomfort. "I just want you to smile again, Jade. That's all."

In his pocket, his phone vibrated furiously in a string of text messages. He pulled it out with an apologetic frown to find several missed texts from the man in charge. It made him wince as he typed out a quick response and shoved it back into his pocket.

"We're being summoned," he mumbled on a sigh, looking back up at her and the tear-stained face that greeted him. She was beautiful even with her cheeks rubbed red and her eyeliner smudged at the corners; it wasn't fair how difficult it was to stop himself from kissing her at every moment. That, too, was an act of restraint. Instead, he pulled a kerchief from his pocket and unfurled it.

"Tilt your chin up."