“Yes,” I told him. “I contacted her.”
“When?”
I felt that tightness in my throat worsen. “The first time?” When he continued staring off to the side, that empty look on his face, I sighed. “I don’t know. I think after Jon woke me up. Tarsi said I started talking to her that same day.” Pausing on that for a beat, I added, “That’s what I remember, too. I contacted her...and Vash through her, I guess.”
Revik nodded again. “Why?” he said, still staring off to the side.
I knew what he was asking me.
Somehow, it didn’t help at all that he didn’t say it aloud.
I followed his eyes around the rest of his compartment inside the tank, noticing only then that the room had been furnished, making it look more like a studio apartment than how I remembered that first version of the tank, in those mountains of China. A bed stood there, what had to be a queen-sized mattress, at least. I also saw a door, probably leading to some kind of bathroom cubicle combined with a small washroom. On the other side of the wall, I saw a desk with a lamp. On it rested a headset, a hand-held, even a good-sized monitor. Next to that stood a small couch. Someone had given him a bookshelf, too, and filled it with paper books, most of them old-looking, probably scripture, or some kind of commentaries. I guessed Wreg had given him those last, considering the pristine shape of the bindings.
Revik and Wreg were two of the only people I knew who even read paper books.
Looking back at his face, I could feel him waiting for me to speak.
“Look,” I said. “I’m not sure if I can answer what you want to know. I don’t know exactly why I went to them...or why I felt it wasn’t safe to go to you. I just did.”
Revik didn’t move. He didn’t even nod that time. When he still hadn’t said anything, a few seconds later, I gestured with one hand, maybe copying him, I don’t know.
“I’m sorry,” I said, somewhat lamely.
He didn’t say anything to that, either.
Walking over to the bed, I sat down, combing my hands through my hair. Exhaling again, I sat up straighter, my fingers grasping my thighs as I looked up at him.
“Revik,” I said, hearing the tension in my own voice. “I thought Cass was going to kill me. I thought I was dead, when she had me on that plane to San Francisco. I remember that part. I remember landing in Golden Gate Park in a helicopter. I remember getting to mom’s house, and her telling me I didn’t deserve to be a mother...” Seeing him wince, I swallowed, shaking my head. “...but I gotta tell you...everything after that is pretty fuzzy. Well, not fuzzy exactly...but it’s not clear like being down here, either. I remember a lot of it. I can’t say I wasn’t conscious, not exactly...but my mind worked differently. I remember it differently than I remember things down here, too. And I don’t know if I can explain to you how I was thinking back then...”
Revik nodded, his face unmoving. He seemed to think about my words.
When he spoke next, I still didn’t hear any accusation in his voice.
“You didn’t think to have them tell me?” he said. “Down here, I mean?”
Hearing the deadened sound in his voice, I shook my head, clicking again as I exhaled.
“It came up,” I admitted.
I felt him waiting again, and swallowed, telling him the truth.
“Look, don’t blame Tarsi,” I said, feeling my face warm. “It wasn’t her...or Vash. It was me. They even tried to talk me into telling you what I was doing.” Not looking up that time, I swallowed again. “I honestly can’t explain why I said no, Revik. It just seemed like a bad idea to me at the time. I don’t remember knowing anything about Menlim’s construct...but some part of me still thought it was a bad idea for you to know.” Hesitating, I exhaled again.
“I made them promise not to tell you, Revik,” I told him. “I made them promise not to tell anyone. No one but the few people we needed...”
Seeing a muscle on his cheek twitch, I hesitated again.
“Revik, I’m sorry. I really am.”
But he didn’t seem to hear that part.
“What you did in our bedroom,” he said, cutting me off, as if his mind still ran on a separate track. “...In the hotel. I saw you die, Allie.”
Watching the stillness of his face, I sighed again, exhaling.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, you did.”
I could feel him waiting.
Exhaling, I shook my head, feeling sick again. “I just knew I needed to,” I told him. “I knew I needed to be connected to all four of you to come back.”
“Come back?”
“From the wires,” I said patiently. “From what Cass did to me.”
Again, he didn’t answer, not even to nod.
“I wish I could tell you more,” I said, frustrated. “I really do. Maybe you should ask Tarsi. According to her, I did connect to the two of them, and that it reconnected the different levels of my light. She says it did more than that somehow, waking up some ‘Bridge’ part of me that had been dormant. She says the death thing made that possible, too...maybe by opening up areas of my light that had been cut off before. Or maybe just by decoupling my light from the structure it had been holding, freeing up my aleimi to take on a new form...”
I felt another shimmer of emotion off of Revik’s light.
It was there and gone, too fast for me to read anything specific, but I tensed.
“She was with you in all of that, too?” he said.
I felt my face warm, suddenly understanding what I’d felt.
“Yes,” I said.
I saw his jaw harden, but again, he only nodded.
Seeing the look on his face, I felt my throat tighten more.
“Revik,” I began. “Revik, I’m really sorry.”
I hesitated again, maybe waiting for him to absorb that, too. Revik continued to stare at the far wall, but I doubted he was really seeing it.
“You went to her,” he said finally. “Not me.”
“No,” I sighed. “Not you. Revik...gods. I was dead. I’m not sure I can be held responsible for what I do when I’m dead, even if I am the Bridge. I think I need some latitude here...”
He held up a hand.
“I’m trying to understand. That’s all, Allie.”
Realizing I could hear the defensiveness in my own voice, I forced another exhale. “I know. I get that.” Forcing my light under control, I looked up at him, my hands still gripping my own thighs through the combat pants I wore. “I get it, Revik...I really do. But you need to hear me on this. It’s not an excuse...it really isn’t. I don’t fully get what I was thinking through a lot of that stuff...especially the stuff that happened after you saw me die. I remember things, but it’s all pretty blurry. It’ll probably take weeks before I––”
“I understand,” he cut in.
Flinching a little, I frowned, still watching his face.
“Tarsi seems to think I did all of that to protect you,” I said, my voice more cautious that time. “To keep you out of danger, and maybe to keep Shadow from killing you to get to me. At the very least to keep Cass from leaving New York with our daughter.”
Revik nodded, his face impassive.
I still couldn’t see any movement in his eyes. More than anything, he looked tired. Exhausted maybe.
Combing my fingers through my hair a second time, I had to fight the impulse to lie back on the bed, to just sprawl there and close my eyes.
Instead, I rose back to my feet.
Walking right up to him that time, I caught hold of his arm.
I did that cautiously, too, borderline asking permission with my light––at the very least, I left him a lot of latitude to say no, even just by making it clear with his own light that the contact wasn’t welcome. I honestly wasn’t sure what he would do, but I more than half expected him to step back, brush me off...maybe even push me off. All it would have taken for me to back off would have been a small push with his light, his hand, or even a look.
&nb
sp; Instead, he didn’t do anything. He didn’t even flinch.
He didn’t look at me, either. I felt pain on him, coiling around his light in dim sparks, unavoidable now that I stood so close. The shield around him remained, too, but I could feel the edges of it fraying somewhat...maybe because we talked, or maybe it started while he’d been looking at Lilai through that window. In either case, the fraying felt more like exhaustion, too, rather than any real opening. His light still felt utterly closed to me.
I tugged on his arm. Rather than trying to get him to talk to me...or even look at me...I led him instead, bringing him closer to the bed.
He didn’t fight me.
He followed me willingly, almost as if he’d been waiting for me to come for him. Looking up at him, though, I felt another rush of frustration when he still wouldn’t meet my gaze. His expression looked the same as before, too. I found myself flashing back to when we’d first met, when we’d been on that ship to Alaska together...before that, even, up at Ullysa’s place in Seattle. He’d been impossible for me to read then, too. He’d been worse, really...he’d gone out of his way to remain stubbornly emotionally unavailable back then.
This didn’t feel like stubbornness, though. Not even remotely.
“Revik,” I said. “Are you angry at me?”
There was a silence. Then he shook his head, clicking softly.
“Why would I be angry with you?” he said.
Another silence filled the small space.
In it, he stared off to the side, this time focusing exclusively on the headboard that rested against the dark green wall of that side of the room.
Looking up at his face, I felt completely at a loss.
I weighed different things I could say. I briefly tried to decide if I should go, even.
I wondered if both of us would feel differently if we slept. Maybe I’d know how to reach him if I was less tired. Maybe he’d be able to hear me.
More than anything, I felt myself reacting to what I felt on him. It confused me––bewildered me, really––but it also hurt. Those hardened darts of pain made my nausea worse, but I felt other things, too, the worst of which felt like a deep-seated defeat, something I couldn’t remember feeling on him in months...years, maybe. The last time I remembered feeling anything close had been during those sessions in the first tank. Specifically, when he’d still been a kid in his uncle’s house, where he’d toyed with the idea of suicide for years.
I felt flickers of that wanting to die on him still, almost like a scent that hadn’t yet dissipated from his skin. I tried to remember what he’d been through these last few months. I tried to remember what it felt like, the last time I’d thought he might be dead.
I also tried to remember that what felt like a few weeks to me––half of it a distant dream, even if that dream had been a nightmare––had been months of real time to him.
Months where he’d been alone, where he’d been fucked with by Shadow, by Cass, by Terian. Months where he’d thought he’d lost everything.
As that much hit me, tears came to my eyes.
“Gods, baby.” I reached up without thinking, touching his face.
He let me, but he still didn’t look at me.
I could feel it now, though.
I could feel that darker current in his light, especially around his chest. I felt the other thing, too, the lighter, softer part that remained, the part of him that still wanted to believe...something. Maybe that everything really wasn’t like he’d thought. Maybe that the worst was over. I caressed his face until his eyes closed, until I felt his light starting to react from the contact.
Realizing again why this felt so familiar, why I remembered this so well, I stepped closer to him again. He might be afraid of having me touch him, but he needed it, too. I could feel how badly he needed it...I just wasn’t sure exactly where that line stood in the sand. Either way, everything about the way I’d been thinking about this changed, once I recognized what I was dealing with. This wasn’t an angry, hurt spouse.
This was a traumatized man. Well, a traumatized seer. In some ways, him being a seer would both simplify this, and make it a lot harder.
In any case, I knew now that I couldn’t leave him alone.
“Hey.” I tugged on his shirt. I guess I was still trying to get him to turn, to look at me, but I wasn’t frustrated that time when he didn’t. “Hey...take this off, okay?”
I saw pain flicker across his features.
He didn’t turn to look at me, but I saw him start to shake his head to tell me no, to back off. Feeling what lay behind the reaction, I gripped his shirt tighter.
“Not for that,” I told him, soft. “Not for that, baby...not unless you want to. Just take off your clothes and lie down. I need you to trust me...okay?”
There was another pause where he just stood there.
In it, the silence felt dense, almost painfully so.
Then he seemed to make up his mind.
I just stood there, watching as he raised his hands to his shirt and began slowly unbuttoning the front. He continued to stare off to the side as he did it, moving methodically, probably without really focusing on what he was doing at all, much less on me. I watched him finish with the front of his shirt and raise his wrists, unhooking the cuffs, one by one.
“Do you want a shower?” I said.
“I took one.”
I nodded, biting my lip as I looked him over. “Do you want me to take off my clothes?”
He shook his head, but it didn’t feel like a no.
“It doesn’t matter to me, Allie,” he said.
I nodded to that, too, trying not to react to the deadened tone of his voice.
He finished taking off the rest of his clothes without looking at me, unbuckling his belt while his shirt still hung open on his shoulders. I watched him take off his pants a few moments later, and his underwear. The shirt came off after that, and I found myself avoiding looking down at most of his body, keeping my eyes on his face and shoulders, instead.
What I could see was distracting enough.
When he’d finished, he just stood there.
I felt him shiver a little, and realized it was cold in the room. I considered using the controls to raise the temperature, then decided that wouldn’t matter either, not once I got him down. Leading him over the side of the bed, I flipped back the covers, then stepped out of the way, motioning for him to get under.
He did what I told him that time, too.
He still hadn’t looked at me.
I watched him as he lay there, on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He closed his eyes then, longer than a blink. I felt another coil of pain leave his light, right before he turned his head, more or less facing me, but still not looking at me directly. I watched as he moved further over in the bed, making space for me. Once he had, he held out his hand.
“Don’t leave me, Allie,” he said. “Please.”
His voice came out quiet, almost reluctant.
Even so, I blinked.
I hadn’t intended on leaving, not at that point. Maybe I’d been thinking I would sit on the couch while he slept...or maybe doze on the couch, to be more realistic...or some combination of both. As my mind turned over his words, though, I felt my chest start to hurt, forcing me to realize that it hadn’t only been him shielding from me. I’d been shielding from him, too, only I’d been doing it out of fear of rejection.
Which struck me as pretty stupid about now.
“I’m not leaving, Revik,” I said. I opened my light. Abruptly, my eyes filled again, making it hard to see him. “I won’t leave, Revik...I’ll never leave.”
Before I let myself think about my choice of words, I slid into the bed next to him, in the space he’d left me when he shifted over. I barely let myself think about what I was doing that time, either, at least not before I had my hands on him.
I touched him everywhere then, caressing his skin, massaging muscles that felt tight, warming him with my light and
fingers. He didn’t move, the whole time I did it. I felt reactions in his light, and in his body. I felt him breathing harder a few times, especially when I got too intimate in touching him, or when I got too intimate with my light.
For the most part he just lay there, though.
Not quite enduring it, but allowing it, maybe.
He’d been telling the truth. He didn’t feel angry at me at all. The whole concept felt alien to his current state of mind, to his light. He felt lost, like some part of him had broken since I’d seen him last. Forcing the thought out of my mind, I continued to touch him, fighting to tread that line between taking care of him and not being overly invasive.
I was still touching him when he spoke.
“I yelled at you once,” he said.
I was massaging his feet when he said it, putting light into my hands, my fingers. His toes curled while I touched him, maybe even cramping until I worked through the muscles patiently, keeping the comforter on his upper body as I worked.
When I glanced up, he was looking at me, his expression taut, but somehow still not holding any feeling I recognized.
“...I yelled at you,” he repeated. “Then I fucked you, Allie.”
I flinched a little.
Then I nodded, swallowing as I looked at him, still rubbing his feet.
He hadn’t sounded angry that time, either. He said it like a confession, like he hated himself for it. The feelings there felt cold though, almost distant.
“I did it again,” he said. “...That night. You gave me head. The next morning, when we woke up, I had sex with you again.” Swallowing, he met my gaze, but only for a few seconds before his eyes flickered away. “We did it again at the hotel, Allie...in New York. You undressed me and we fucked in that chair, by the bed in our room. You were on my lap...I fucked you on the couch, too, not long after that...” His face tightened more. “I don’t mean that as an excuse, the undressing part. I just meant...”
He trailed, as if unsure how to go on.
I was having trouble seeing him again.
My throat hurt. Light filled my eyes as I stared at his face, watching him avoid my gaze. That pain that started somewhere in my chest worsened as he talked, but I didn’t want to interrupt him. I wished I knew what to tell him, but there didn’t feel like anything to say to his words, either. When he seemed to be finished talking, I released his feet.
Allie's War Season Four Page 59
