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Kaine’s thumb stroked across her knuckles, finally stopping at her ring finger, spiralling something there slowly. The ring.
SHE HAD IT ALL ALONG
IM CRYING
“So you’ll come—eventually?” Her voice was hopeful.
His eyes glittered for a moment, and she saw the briefest curve of his lips as he quietly said, “If that’s what you want.” It felt like a lie.
“Aurelia might notice now,” she said, not stepping through the doorway. “She’s gone.”
*Lil dancy dance*
“Kaine…” He stopped, and she instantly withdrew her hand. She forced a tight smile. “Be careful. Don’t die.” He stood unmoving for a moment, staring at her, and then turned away. “Right.”
THE PRIOR COMMITMENT AH
“Today, you didn’t say you’d always come for me,” she said. “You used to say that when I had to go. When I—” She blinked, one hand spasming. “I think. Didn’t you?”
“Through wreckage, and piles of corpses, through prisons and mines and laboratories, and across a damned continent. I looked everywhere—except the one place that mattered.”
This man has gone through it
it? You’re waiting until I’m gone, because it won’t matter then if Morrough knows you’re a traitor, because you’ll be dead. Because that’s the only way left to weaken Morrough, losing the High Reeve.”
“Is this not enough? There are, undoubtedly, still unexplored depths to the potential misery between us. Shall we endeavour to achieve all of it?”
Youve gone through so much Ferron...
“Let’s not do this,” he said. “I’ll come back tomorrow, and I’ll—try to—” “No.” She shook her head. “I need to get used to you again. I need to remember it.”
“Don’t apologise to me,” he snapped, glaring down at her. “But you’re angry with me, aren’t you?”
No shit Sherlock
“It would have killed me. If you’d sent me away and I’d found out later you were discovered because I made you go back for Lila, it would have killed me. I’d do it all again, every second, to save you.”
“You didn’t save me,” he said when he was finally capable of speech. “You just put us in hell for two years.”
“You shouldn’t have assumed I’d be willing to lose you,” she said. “Did you think I cared less because I had other obligations? That I don’t feel things as much as you? I did everything I could to keep you safe. You don’t know all the things I did.”
Dude you were constantly saying youd pick the resistance over him!!!
She could feel Kaine’s fingers, still entwined with hers. She searched for him and found him on the floor, sitting beside the bed, his head slumped to the side.
But this close, despite the alterations of time, he was hers. Still. Just as he had been. He’d loved her, even though he never expected them to be anything but doomed. He’d loved her all the same.
“I’m trusting you—begging you—not to make me regret this.” She wasn’t sure what he meant until he wrapped his fingers around her wrist and the ribbon of metal suddenly unspooled. She watched, wide-eyed, as he unwound it and the tube of encased nullium slid out of her wrist.
“I’ll have to put the nullium back in when Stroud visits, or she’ll notice. I hope you understand why I couldn’t do this sooner.”
Kaine watched, clearly torn between his desire to keep her in a state and place that he could fully control and not wanting to be her captor any longer. He’d had to choose, and he’d set her free.
I bet this is what he's been wanting to do all this time. Seeing her being tormented must of been killing him
“Be careful,” she said. “Don’t—” The word caught in her throat. She squeezed his hand. “Come back to me, all right?” “I will.”
Kaine was sitting next to her. He had her pregnancy guide open, eyes skimming across the pages.
She slowly began to realise that he was indulging her. The notes, removing her manacles: It was all an attempt to appease her.
"Anything you want as long as you live"
“simple methods of abortion are unlikely to be feasible by the time you’ll escape. There are other methods that can be done by vivimancy or surgery. When you go, I’ll try to ensure you have the materials necessary to resolve it, but if there’s anything in particular you’ll need, just tell me. I’ll make sure that you have it.”
God the amount of guilt he must feel...
“I didn’t realise you expected me to terminate the pregnancy when I escaped. I mean, I understand why you would, but I’m not going to.”
!!!!!
If I didn’t, I’d wonder about everything. If our baby would get your eyes or mine. What kind of resonance they’d have. If they’d have any, or if they’d just get to be ordinary.” She was speaking quickly, because her throat was growing thick. “I’d wonder if they’d have hair like mine or if it would be straight like yours. If I have to go without you—if you—if you die—I’d want to tell them all about you.”
*UGLY CRIES*
“Do you really want to spend the rest of your life with one of the Undying’s bastards chained to you?” he asked. “The whole world knows you’re here, who you were sent to. Do you think they won’t guess who the father was and how it came to be? No matter what colour eyes it has, or how old it gets, it will be the child of a murderer, conceived because I raped you while you were my prisoner, and everyone will know that. Everyone.”
“Kaine…” She reached towards him. “You’re not a monster. You didn’t have any choice. Neither of us—we were both raped.”
THIS, YES, THEY'RE BOTH VICTIMS
“Did you really think I would still hate you once I remembered?” She shook her head. “Even before I did, you were the only thing that ever felt safe. I thought I was going mad, but a part of me always knew you. I left a note. Didn’t you get my note? I love you.”
VERBAL CONFIRMATION YES
“I’m sorry—I’m sorry—I’m so sorry for everything I did to you,” he said, his voice hoarse and broken. “I love you. You left, and I’d never told you.”
AAAAAAAAAAAAAH *CRIES*
That would be quite unfortunate. I think we’re far enough along that I can…” Stroud squinted, and the screen morphed, the shape stretching and ballooning. Stroud’s face suddenly fell. “It’s female.”
“Well, this is disappointing. We wanted a male,” she said, glaring down at Helena as if she’d purposely conceived the wrong gender.
THIS IS ENOUGH PROOF TO PROVE YOU'RE A SHITTY SCIENTIST!!!
“The High Necromancer will not be pleased. A female is—out of the question. Practically unthinkable.” “It was always a fifty percent chance,” Kaine said, appearing unconcerned. “I was under the impression that any animancer child would do at this point.” “Yes, but a female.” Stroud sounded as if she were referring to some kind of rodent. “He will not be pleased.”
This ain't an IVF clinic bitch
Kaine had been right when he’d called her desperate to love someone. It seemed to be her fatal flaw.
“My mother’s name was Enid.” Helena nodded. She remembered that. He looked towards the garden, fingers curling into a fist. “I always liked that name.”
Smashing my head on my desk rn
He was telling the stories so Helena could tell their daughter about him, about what he’d been like, before the Institute and the war.
KAINE NO, STOP TALKING LIKE THAT
“I’m not sure what will happen to the estate and inheritance. I’ve transferred as much as I can to a foreign account, but if you did ever come back, I’m not sure if she’d be able to claim it. I can look into it, if you want.”
AND HES LEAVING THEM TAKEN CARE OF FINANCIALY
A TRUE MAN, A MAAAAAAAAAN
“I don’t want the last time to be when you were—” She swallowed. “—when we were being forced.”
Healing from this is gonna be brutal
She rested her head on his shoulder, entwining her arm with his as they sat there in the lengthening dark, amid the ruins of all they’d once been. They just needed more time.
“There’s a point when you have to realise that you aren’t going to get everything you want. You have to choose and let it be enough for you.
I always have to choose, and I never get to choose you. I’m so tired of not getting to choose you.”
And it only took the extermination of the Resistance to get here
“You’re not choosing. You promised me anything I wanted. I want you to stop breaking yourself trying to save me. Go. Live. Tell our daughter I saved you both. That—is what I want.”
HE SAID "OUR" AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
“Did you know, you are the worst promise keeper I have ever met?”
“And you think parading a pregnant prisoner famously sent here for interrogation will reassure them?” “I think explaining why she’s pregnant will do it.
She's so desperate to prove her mediocre self
“Get up and put on something thin enough that your stomach will show.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Stroud went over to the wardrobe and pulled out a chemise, then stuffed it up the front of Helena’s dress so that her stomach looked visibly distended.
Bruv
“Don’t think of it as a baby,” Stroud said sharply, loud enough that Helena could hear over her pounding heart. “It is simply human materials with the right resonance.”
