Chapter Text
Time was a funny thing.
Time could seem as though it isn't there one moment, and the next it could speed past you in such a blur that you didn't know what hit you. It could give you whiplash if you weren't careful.
Boredom could stretch it out agonizingly and joy could make it vanish cruelly. It could also seem to stop entirely, for all the best or worst reasons.
As someone who had lived seemingly through an endless span of time, Kamilah had plenty of hours over thousands of years to reflect deeply on the subject. She'd lived long enough to see entire civilizations rise and fall. She'd also thought she'd lived through all the absolute worst pain any mortal or immortal could endure.
Oh how she had been wrong. She should have known.
But despite her long years of life, and her hard learned wisdom, she wasn't prepared for this. How was that possible? She who had suffered for a millennia, how was she not prepared for this most painful moment in time?
Why out of all the moments of her life, why did this moment have to be the one to stop time completely?
She knew perfectly well she had done unforgivable things in her life. She was under no illusions about who and what she was. There was an ocean of blood on her hands that she feared she could never wash away. She had thought she had made peace with that fact. She had resigned herself to lonely solitude. To shut herself off from the world around her and had determined to do her best to quietly atone for her years as a monster. She knew she could never fully make it right and that she could never undo the past, but she had wanted to do better, to be better.
There were times when she could remember the person she used to be. The woman she was before Gaius. Before losing Lysimachus. She was once upon a time a good person. A kind and thoughtful person. A person who may have had a temper at times, sure, but also a good heart. A person who smiled, who laughed.
Sometimes remembering who she once was felt more like recalling half a dream, rather than looking back through ones memories. Gods, did she really laugh once? So freely?
How did that woman become Gaius' Bloodqueen? The Reaper of Pompeii some called her, those old enough to remember it anyway.
She never liked that name. It was a stupid name if you asked her, and the way that ridiculous moniker had ended up sticking to her instead of Gaius who had been there as well was frankly, a little insulting. She knew she was a monster in her own right but Gaius made slaughter a hellish art form, and he reveled in it like no other. He was violence and sadism incarnate, yet she was called 'The Reaper of Pompeii'. It was almost laughable. Almost. But she never laughed about it.
The memory and the name only ever instilled in her a feeling of disgust and shame, partly at Gaius but mostly at herself. Would she ever be free from her self loathing? It felt never ending and it was exhausting. It's why she really did her best to not think at all about the past. It simply hurt to remember all she had done, and it didn't help to try and recall her life before Gaius. That, too led to pain. Confusion and pain. It was best not to think of it, just focus on the now and let the past die. Even if it's ghosts still came back to haunt you.
It all blurred at some point in her life. Was it grief that drove her to be that monster? Was it Gaius? Was it simply who she really was deep down? She didn't like thinking about it because she never had any clear answers for herself and it made her feel hopeless.
It made her afraid that maybe she was never the good person she once believed herself to be. Was she lying to herself then? The very notion tormented her.
Would she ever escape it?
These questions always plagued her. They made her despair and doubt and it also made her angry. At herself. At some point over the centuries she felt she was too old to still feel sorry for herself. She didn't think she deserved the luxury of self pity. She didn't have the right.
How dare she wallow in her own self loathing after the things she had done. As if it made any goddamned difference. As if it would mean anything to her countless victims to simply feel regret after the fact. It wouldn't.
Too little, too late.
Regret and remorse could not undo what she had done. As much as she wished a million times she could take it all back, she couldn't. You can't unring a bell, as she knew too well.
So what was the point? Best not to dwell on it. It is what it is, as the mortals now say.
She had been determined to just stay in her self imposed social exile. To live without living. To exist in a shell of loneliness and quietly do what good she could do, and let the world go on around her. Without her. To wait out her life sentence until eventually she grew tired of punishing herself and ended it.
That also felt like something she had to earn. As much as she had wished to no longer live, she didn't feel she had any right to take her own life.
No, she needed to quietly suffer in silence for another few thousand years perhaps, and then...maybe she could find peace.
She had always wondered if perhaps somewhere along the way someone else would end it for her.
Little did she know that's exactly what would happen, though not in the way she expected. She had never anticipated someone loving her back to life the way Amy had. How on earth could anyone love someone as despicable as her? She would have sooner believed Adrian would build a summer home on the moon than think love would be the thing to free her.
No, whenever she entertained the idea of someone putting her out of her misery she always envisioned falling in an epic fight, not falling in love. Besides, between love and death, it was clear which she believed she deserved.
She had sometimes on bad days indulged in the occasional daydream of someone bursting into her office to kill her.
She liked that thought.
Or perhaps she could someday die honorably in battle, fighting for some grand and noble reason? What a lovely notion.
She liked that thought even better.
The only problem was she was too much of a survivor for that to be a realistic hope. She was a fighter, the ultimate fighter one could say. A warrior with nearly endless experience. She wouldn't go down easily and in 2,063 years of life she had not once met anyone who could take her life from her.
Perhaps that was also something she didn't deserve. She knew that. To have a chance at redemption by dying a hero in battle? No. She definitely didn't deserve that either.
Honestly...her...a hero? No. Another laughable thought.
These were all things she had thought she had accepted and resigned herself to. Until everything changed. Until Kamilah met a mewling mortal who would save her from herself in a way she never dared to believe was possible.
But now this?
This moment in time?
This was her true punishment. To see.....this...
It was unfair. She refused to accept this. This was too much, even for her.
To witness a mortal, her mortal, someone she had unexpectedly come to love more than anything in the world, being slaughtered before her?
No. This... This wasn't right. This couldn't be happening. This was some sort of fevered nightmare. This couldn't possibly be her punishment. It was too much.
Mortals all throughout time spoke of hell, but this, this was true hell.
To see the only light and hope in your life in two thousand years, the only thing that made you remember what it felt like to truly be alive....to find that...to have that for such a brief second, and then watch in horror as that was taken from you?
Not only that, but to have the hellish moment it's stolen from you be frozen in time before you? How was that fair?!
She thought she understood time, and pain and punishment but she realized how utterly and completely wrong she had been.
She was a fool.
A fool for ever letting this mortal in. A fool for ever being drawn to her. A fool for ever letting this mortal kiss her or touch her... be kind to her. To let this....this woman close to her. To let this woman make her think for a second she deserved to stop punishing herself.
This idiotic fucking mortal had somehow gotten through every wall, every defense. Worse, she made her feel things she....well she didn't think she was even capable of feeling anymore. This sweet, stupid mortal made Kamilah believe she could have a second chance at life, a new life, a new her, a better her, and that she could spend this second chance, this better life with her.
This sweet, horrible woman, made her believe that.... not only could she feel happiness again but.....maybe she deserved it? This damned mortal made her feel...loved?
Love. Actual love. For real this time.
What she had with Gaius was a lot of things, but real wasn't one of them. That had been a bitter realization.
How fucking ironic then, that the one person she finally loved unreservedly, the one person she could never stand to loose in her entire long life, was impaled on a fucking sword right before her eyes.
By the one man in Kamilah's life that seemed to have a natural talent for taking things away from her.
The sword in his hand was buried up to the hilt in her beloved mortals chest.
"Amy!" She cried out in anguish barely recognizing the sound of her own voice.
She was helpless to stop it. Incapacitated. She had been too slow. Far too slow! This was all her fault. She had her chance and fucked it up, and now it was going to cost her Amy's life. Amy's love. She'd never...
No. She refused. She refused to finish that thought. She refused to accept this.
Enough was enough!
Whatever she may have done in her life, whatever hell she may have deserved, Amy didn't deserve this. She refused to let Amy become her ultimate punishment. She refused to lose her like this.
She had only just found her, she couldn't. She wouldn't. She refused to face the endless quiet loneliness anymore. Not after having Amy in her life. How could she ever go back to the way it was before?
She couldn't. Never again.
This awful damnable fucking moment in time, paused before her. She felt sick.
Time was a funny thing though, and it had a sadistic sense of humor sometimes.
The fight with Gaius had all happened so fast, she had leapt down at him, as fast as she possibly could, and then in a flash she was paralyzed. She felt pathetic. It had been so effortless for him to stop her. She wasn't even a challenge to him anymore. The others had dived in immediately, and were also brought down just as easily. He had been toying with them. They never stood a chance, she realized too late.
Everything happened in such a rush and yet in that moment she looked up to see Amy running at Gaius, dread in the pit of her stomach, seeing the stake held firmly in her hand....that's when time started to slow, and before Kamilah could shout any sort of warning she saw Gaius lift the sword, aiming it perfectly, as Amy flew right at it and then...
Then came the moment it pierced her.
That was when time stopped.
Why right then?
Why was it still frozen before her?
Stupid. She was so fucking stupid. How could Amy be so stupid?! Anger flared up. She wanted to scream at her! She's always so damned reckless! Why did she have to be so selflessly brave? Why? It was one of many things she loved about her, but right now it was something she wanted to hate about her. Why couldn't she, just this one time, stay back and stay out of it?! Why? Goddamn it, she always fought so hard to try to keep her safe, and yet it never seemed to be enough. She wasn't....she wasn't strong enough. Why did she always feel so completely helpless when it really mattered?
Kamilah felt as if she were being held prisoner by time, by this moment, which was easily the worst moment of her life. Trapped and unable to move, only able to watch. It was unbearable torture.
She needed to get to her. That's all she could think suddenly. She needed to get to her, NOW. she needed to help her, she needed to save her. She just needed time to get to her and stop this but everything was just suspended in this one moment, unmoving.
It was slowly killing her.
At first she didn't even notice as Amy's hand holding the stake started to rise. She'd almost forgotten about the stake altogether, honestly.
She heard dimly as if from far away the sound of Gaius' voice coldly taunting Amy, "Nice try."
The sound made hatred explode inside her, with a strength she didn't know she could feel. Had she ever felt hate this strongly before? She thought she had understood hatred but his voice? In this moment it redefined the word to her.
Later. She would deal with him later.
Right now, Amy was all that mattered. She needed to get to Amy, and make this all better.
After? Then she would deal with Gaius. She would end him if it was the last damn thing she ever did.
Any lingering conflicted feelings she had for him, which weren't a lot, were now dead.
Ashes. That was all she had left for Gaius, ashes. Nothing more, and she would make sure ashes would be all that's left of him when she was finished.
Suddenly another voice reaches her ears. With that sound the frozen moment slowly starts to thaw, and relinquish it's hold on her.
At first she doesn't recognize it's Amy's voice. Kamilah stares at her, heart wrenching. This better not be her last words, she can't....
She can't handle it if these are her last words. She can't handle how softly she speaks. How weak she sounds....she sounds as if she's fading away.
"I-i… don't try."
A pause as blood drips from Amy's mouth as she gasps struggling for a breath.
"I win."
Amy suddenly raises the stake held strong in her dying hand, stabbing right at Gaius' chest, hitting directly into his heart.
Time suddenly releases its hold like a shot from a gun. Everything resumes as if it hadn't been paused for an eternity before Kamilah.
Finally.
She can't believe what she's seeing.
Amy did it?
She did. She fucking did it. That crazy girl actually did it. She did what none of them could.
Gaius is screaming and flailing, his body twisting unnaturally as...vines? Yes, vines begin bursting out of him. Vines and leaves wrap and swirl around him. His limbs begin curling into... Branches. Its surreal.
Everyone is transfixed.
No one expected this.
A tree? He's turning into a tree.
She expected ashes. She stares dumbfounded for a split second before she refocuses back on Amy, who has fallen to her knees.
Nothing else matters except Amy. Gaius can turn into a pile of fertilizer for all she cares, she needs to get to Amy. That is all that matters now.
She moves as fast as she can to stop her as she falls forward, her mind frantically racing. She catches Amy and pulls her close, trying desperately not to panic but all she can do is stare dumbly at the sword in her chest. She knows medical help isn't an option, and even if it were this wound is beyond any doctor's skill.
"We....did it." Amy chokes out softly. So softly.
Kamilah's eyes immediately flick up to Amy's. Why is she speaking so softly?
She's dying.
As much as Kamilah doesn't want to acknowledge that fact, it sinks in. It feels like an anchor dragging her down and drowning her in her deepest fear.
Amy smiles at her. How can she still look so beautiful covered in so much blood? How can she smile? Doesn't she realize what she's done?
Amy makes a choking noise and more blood leaks from her mouth. Kamilah instinctively hugs her closer, cradling her as if this girl were her very heart, which she is, as she whispers, "Amy, no..." Kamilah's hand hovers helplessly over the sword protruding from Amy's chest.
She knows there's nothing to be done about it.
Kamilah lowers her gaze from Amy's eyes, down to the sword, and then she can't help but stare at all of the blood....gods, so much blood. You'd think the sight wouldn't make her so sick, but it does.
Amy makes a horrible rattling gasp as she struggles to breathe and instantly Kamilah looks back up and cannot tear her eyes from Amy's.
She should say something, anything. But she feels her throat closing up, her face getting hot. Kamilah hasn't felt anything like this in over two thousand years, and it overwhelms her, this pain she never thought she'd have to suffer again, and yet its worse than before. So much worse. She can see the agony in Amy's eyes, she's in so much pain.
"I... I'm sorry." Amy whispers.
Kamilah finds her voice, "No. Don't be sorry. You saved us. You saved all of us." She really had, in so many ways. Amy didn't even realize what she had done for her. She couldn't possibly understand what she had done, what she meant to her. Kamilah leans down and presses her forehead to Amy's.
She keeps her eyes locked on Amy's but her vision blurs with tears she's trying hard to hold back.
"Don't.....cry..... You never..... cry." Amy almost wheezes.
The tears escape, running freely down Kamilah's face. God when's the last time she cried? She can't recall.
Kamilah chokes back a sob, "This wasn't enough. We didn't have enough time."
It wasn't fair damn it! She remembers the last promise she had made to Amy before this all went so horribly wrong, "We'll end this once and for all. Gaius will be dead. I'll be free, and I'll be yours." She had meant those words with her very soul. They ended this, Gaius was now slain, she.... she's supposed to be free now, she's supposed to be Amy's. They're supposed to be together now, they were supposed to have more time! Instead Kamilah is watching the love of her long and miserable life bleed to death. This wasn't supposed to happen like this. She didn't understand how or why any of this was happening.
Amy lifts a weak hand up to Kamilah's face, who holds it in hers and presses it to her cheek, uncaring that it leaves a bloody hand print there. Amy speaks again, softly, so softly, as if every syllable is taking every bit of strength she has left, and it probably is, "I don't....want to leave you...." Amy shudders and Kamilah stops breathing momentarily as she continues, "Kamilah, I.... I'm cold.... really.....cold."
She knows what that means. She can't take this.
"Amy..." Her voice shakes, as she strokes her cheek gently, pulling her even closer, staring into her eyes, determination setting in, "Amy. Listen to me. You are strong. You are brave. You are the most wonderful woman I've ever met, and I love you."
She shouldn't have waited until now to say that.
She knows that.
She should have said it a hundred other times when they were together. So many wasted moments, so much time thrown away being afraid of this girl when she should have been holding onto her and telling her exactly how much she meant to her.
She isn't sure if Amy heard her, she notices her eyes glaze over and she feels a momentary panic before a calm decision settles over her.
They had never discussed it.
In fact, Kamilah was sure at some point they were eventually going to get around to it, but she took for granted how much time they'd have together before it became an issue. No more.
It was now or never.
She felt a slight trepidation at first realizing the gravity of what she was about to do. It was possible Amy would hate her for it, and the thought of her greatest love hating her scared her, but it was worth the risk.
She couldn't imagine any sort of life without her now, it would be no life at all. She would not lose her like this.
Especially not when she could do something about it.
Amy would have to understand.
She couldn't let her go like this.
Kamilah bit her wrist, slicing it open nice and deep, pressing the wound to Amy's lips.
No one spoke a word.
In the dead silence all eyes were on Amy.
They all waited.