Nathan Gray sat on the railing of what had once been the deck of a cargo ship. Since the ship was broken nearly in half and sitting atop a pile of rubble near the dockyards of New York City, it made for an odd tableau. He watched the city below as it tried to return to life, firefighters trying to help find anyone who might be trapped amid the destruction, police officers attempting to restore order and direct traffic. His sister was a police officer these days, he'd heard. He hadn't seen her in over a decade. He wondered if she ever had to restore order in the wake of a mutant rampage.
Probably not. Nothing ever happened in central Minnesota.
The scene had more or less cleared out below, various parties dispersed to wherever heroes went when they weren't needed and villains went when they weren't wanted, and he'd stayed to watch the everyday people try to go about their every day lives. Perhaps, in a different world, he would have been one of them. Instead he was something else, a man with blades in his flesh and daggers in his soul, waiting for someone to come and give one of the knives another twist.
The wind flushed behind him, and he didn't bother to turn around and look, staying instead where he was seated. Maybe it wouldn't be her.
Maybe it would.
He didn't know which he was hoping for.
A girl walked past him. Black hair, black armor, skin-tight like a bodysuit, or a carapace. She hopped up on the railing a bit away from him, perfectly balanced, eyes the color of the ocean scanning the horizon, spear held downward-pointed, guarding. She didn't speak. Nathan wondered if she still could. That was only one of the questions he didn't want to ask. He waited. He wouldn't be the one to break the silence.
It almost broke him, when the hand rested on his shoulder. "Nathan... why are you sitting here alone?"
He didn't look at her. Either she'd look the same - Lithe, slender curves, long copper-brown hair, eyes flickering forth between brown and blood red - or she wouldn't. Either way, he'd be devastated. "It seemed appropriate."
She slid up to sit beside him on the railing, resting her cheek against his shoulder. The dark hair was still there; he could feel it catching through his fingers. He stroked it, knowing he shouldn't. "Why don't you come home?" she asked, softly.
"I don't belong there, Saikea," he told her, just as quietly.
"No. But it's still your home. It always will be."
"As long as you're there." He said it for her, so she wouldn't have to. "Why are you here?"
"Because you won't come home."
She shifted, her eyes searching for his. After a moment, he let her find them. "I can't."
"I know." She didn't argue. She understood. He leaned forward, kissed her. She tasted like he remembered. Some days, he didn't want to remember. Most days, he couldn't bear to forget. Her eyes shifted when he broke the kiss, flooded crimson for a moment, then swirled back to liquid brown.
"You did it again, didn't you?" Nathan asked, quietly, watching the shadows flicker behind her eyes. "Bound another. After I left."
She didn't deny it, simply shrugging. "It's fine, Nathan. I can control it. I have enough willpower."
He glanced over to her silent guardian, waiting slightly apart, immovable as a statue. "And she doesn't have any. Funny how that works out." He hated the bindings, the reminder of it made him argumentative.
Saikea smiled slightly. "You say that as if you didn't know I was doing it before. You never tried to stop me then."
He sighed, softly. "By the time I thought I should, it was too late."
"Did you?" she inquired, curious, "Think you should?"
"I..." Another hesitation, guilty. "I don't know. I was worried about you." A pause, then an admission, "I'm still worried about you."
"Why?"
"Because when we were young, I thought I would follow you anywhere. For a while, I did. Somewhere, over the years, we lost that. And I don't know if it was because I changed, or because you did."
"We've both changed." The simplest answer, but also the simplest truth. "We're both still changing."
"Yes. But at some point we have to choose what we're changing into."
She smiled, a little sadly. "I thought you knew I made that choice a long time ago."
He echoed the smile, just as bittersweet. "I keep hoping that will change."
"It's what I want, Nathan. To have the power to protect."
"It's not your ideal that's the problem, Saikea, it's the things you're willing to do to go about it."
"I'm willing to do what must be done."
"How many innocents are going to be slaughtered because you're obsessed with becoming a god?" A line too far, and yet one that should have been reached a long time ago.
Still, she hated it. Crimson eyes flashed fire and damnation. "Kaedriel was an innocent. Do you know what they did to her?"
He refused to flinch. "No," he answered, "And neither does she, because you sacrificed her memory to bind a demigod."
"She's better off without it."
"That may be, but that should be her choice."
"It was her choice."
"Was that before or after you started draining her free will?"
"Don't argue with me, Nathan." It could have been a condemnation. It could have been an order. It could have been a plea. It was none of those, just a quiet request, out of place and yet completely right for her. "I don't want to argue with you. Not when you won't come home with me."
Not when you won't come home to me. He heard it, even if she'd phrased it differently. He sighed and nodded and let the anger drain away. "I won't." An answer to both statements, and she knew it as well as he did.
She let it go, rested her cheek on his shoulder again. "Will you go back to the arctic?"
"For now," he answered, "For a while. And you?"
"You know where I'll be, Nathan. You can always find me. When you're ready to come home."
He held her, in silence, because there was nothing more to say. After a while, darkness fell and he pulled away, hopping down to make his way back to the arctic base, alone. Maybe the chill would purge the lingering warmth of her body beside him.
Maybe, in time, he would forgive it.
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