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She thinks she knows pain.
She doesn’t.
It rips through each cell, rendering her vision white for a staggering few seconds. There’s just too much going on around her, within her. Blood pools through her fingers as she tries to staunch the flow. But she only has two hands and one heart that grows weaker with each fragile breath.
Anya tries not to wonder which will be her last.
She limps at first before all she can manage are short burst crawls, inching her way through the snow as Delta tears through the Wraiths. She’d never seen him fight like this. No , she realizes. She hadn’t seen him fight at all. This whirlwind of destruction has no name. Not man or machine, but a blade poised with almost surgical precision as he kills. Blood and gore spatter his armour and loose hair. It does little to deter him, rather, it spurs him on.
The man who must be their leader doesn’t have the chance to run. Delta reels an arm back before hurling one of the rods into his shoulder. The force sends him stumbling to the ground and he shouts in pain.
A poisonous green glow emits from Delta’s gaze as he stalks toward his newfound prey. They were not the same eyes that often arched in bemusement, nor the ones that had been ringed in evidence of damning human exhaustion. Whatever had overcome him was something else entirely.
Delta grabs his arm and twists as he pulls until a deafening pop sounds. Anya’s stomach roiled. Bone and sinew spill out onto the snow and the man screams. The smell and sound make her want to retch.
Numbness creeps through her limbs and she rolls onto her back, seeking purchase in the sky. Her ears rang and Anya wasn’t entirely sure if the screaming was in her head or from the carnage going on around. She supposes it doesn’t matter. She’s not long for the world anyway.
Snowflakes kiss her skin and the wind whispers its final farewell. It's not the worst goodbye, Anya thinks. But when was the last time she’d been held, wrapped so tightly in someone’s arms that she couldn’t possibly imagine how cruel the world could be outside of their warmth?
She’d held onto the hands of the dying before. Her heart had always ached for those who had no one at the end of their life but a staff of nurses and a doctor waiting to declare a time of death. It didn’t matter if it was a stranger, everyone deserved to have someone in their last moments.
No one but the water had embraced her, smothering her screams until they were choked from her lungs. She would die. She would come back. Why should she be pitied when no one else got a second chance?
Blood dribbles down her lips and her eyelids flutter. It won’t be long now. Her breaths rattled in her chest.
A sudden sharp jerk at her hair has her crying out.
“C’mere!” the Wraith hauls her up roughly.
“Get off me!” she wheezes, using whatever last remains of strength to push at them. Her limbs refuse to obey. “Let…let me g—go…” It’s all she can manage.
“Just be q—quiet!” There was a deep-seated fear behind their words.
They don’t get to protest further. There’s nothing but a faint rustle of wind and a dull cracking noise and the sound of a body crashing to the ground before Anya is falling and falling—
Into something warm and solid. She’s laid ever so gently to the ground, her head resting on Delta’s lap and the promise of something tender, something she’d almost forgotten splits her into two.
“Anya—”
His voice is far away and rough, betraying some foreign emotion she doesn’t have the strength to decipher. His arms tighten around her.
So it seemed there was someone to hold her after all.
It’s the last thing Anya hears before her world turns dark.
══════════════════
He thinks he knows rage.
He doesn’t.
There was always an eerie sort of calm. The cold, methodical kind that served him well in battle. The world would narrow into the next steps, the next kill. Which point to strike, which would inflict the most damage. Unlike his brother, he enjoyed toying with his prey. Though often in the end a swift kill was more efficient.
There was a saying; in all chaos there is calculation. And he indeed calculated like the machine he was.
Except he doesn't see the rods aimed straight at him. Nor does he gamble on the blur of a human streaking towards him, launching herself with full force. Delta feels the impact of each wound, the air that leaves her lungs with each hit. He acts, snatching one before it can hurt her again.
On his chest, Anya weakly raises her head to look at him and incredibly, she smiles. A slight tug of her lips but a smile nonetheless. He’d tried his best to pry them out of her for weeks, wondered if she was even capable of such a thing anymore. More often than not he succeeded in irritating her and even that proved…satisfying.
But this.
This was devastating.
“Gotcha,” she says lightly, almost casually. As if they were sharing some private joke between them. The strain on her features says otherwise.
Cold shock bleeds through him. Something darker, more volatile seeps in as he takes in her injuries. For a moment all he can do is stare with one arm poised above them as he gripped the Dramaxil rod. Delta tosses it aside.
“Get her!”
There were too many of them, he knew that. And Anya…
He surveys the wounds using his interface. He couldn’t leave them in her and there wasn’t any time to attempt to safely remove them. There was only one choice.
She makes it for him.
“Do it.” There was a resolved fierceness in her gaze as she looks up at him.
His jaw clenches, eyebrows furrowed together. Anya doesn’t waver. The damned Wraiths were getting closer. They were out of time.
Her body tenses in anticipation. He tries to be gentle but were his hands ever made for such a thing?
Her scream is lost to the wind as he pulls out the first rod. Tears mix with blood, red blood. It stains the snow, his armour, his hands. There’s too much of it for her to heal quickly enough. Anya presses her face into his chest as he pulls the second one. Her low sobs fracture something in his chest.
Slowly as not to disturb her, he rises to his feet. He awaits the calm like one would greet an old friend.
It never comes.
Instead, there’s a growing roar. A soundless, nameless one that hungers to rip and shred. His fury grows claws, lips pulling behind teeth to bare fangs. Anya presses a hand over her wounds and each of her laboured breaths stokes the flame into a blaze.
A few of the Wraiths hesitated and he knew why. There were no more lingering vestiges of humanity left in his face.
The Devil had come to collect.
He becomes the storm and speed, death and destruction. Each spray of blood and crack of bone feeds some primal gratification but it’s not enough. He wants to hurt, to take and take until there was nothing left to give. Let them call him a monster for good reason.
He aims one of the rods they’d used to wound her, to try to kill him, and impales the Wraith who stands back as his team bears the slaughter. He’s on him in a heartbeat and Delta delights in each moan of agony as he wrenches his arm back and pulls.
This was what his hands did best. The man lets out a gargled scream as tendons and muscle tear.
Then he hears her shout.
Delta swings, bringing down the weapon into the Wraith’s skull. He’d moved almost instantly. His arms encircle her as she falls, carefully lowering her. Her eyes are unfocused as she takes her last breaths. He wasn’t helpless often, it wasn’t in his nature. But there was nothing he could do, nothing except watch with his arms dangling loosely at his sides as she—
A single tear escapes her lashes and runs down her blood-spattered cheek. Delta knows somehow that he will see this moment always.
He says her name and his voice catches. He’s not sure what he wants to say, and he doesn’t get the chance to decide. It happens all too quickly and yet agonizingly slow.
Her heartbeat stutters, pulsing faintly. One final breath.
Her heart stops. He hears it. Feels it.
And something within him dies with her.
══════════════════
He wasn’t sure if the water was hot or cold. It slides down his broad shoulders and he has to remind himself it's not what he thinks it is. Delta scrubs at his skin until it feels raw, but there’s no escape from the feel of her blood on his hands, the scent of it everywhere. He can’t unsee her.
Her eyes which had widened when he’d sworn to keep her safe.
Her eyes which had fluttered shut as she died, his own face reflected in their dim depths. The image is pressed beneath his lids and a sharp fist around his lungs.
Delta knew he should get out. Instead, he tips his head back and pretends the water will finally make him clean.
══════════════════
“Why would a human risk their life for you?” His sister resides in the shadows of the room, arms crossed.
“I don’t know,” he replies. He hears himself speak but it doesn’t sound quite right. “What does it matter? Just tell me it worked, Gamma.”
“Of course it did. Turns out your human rat wasn’t lying.” She stalks closer, utterly silent. The barest hint of light slants across her features.
“It’s a factory on the eastern outskirts of the city, expertly hidden.” With one hand she gently scratches her cat’s head. It rumbles a purr in satisfaction. “Just how long have we been blind to them, D?”
He should say something. He knows he should.
“...Delta?”
Anya looked terribly beautiful in death, almost at peace. He loathes it.
“It’s nothing.”
Her chin-length hair brushes her face as she angles her head, gaze going between him and the human lying on the bed.
“Why are you looking at her like that?”
An unfamiliar feeling constricts his throat. Too many to name. His gaze caresses Anya's forehead to the curve of her jaw. It looked as if she were asleep, but he knew better. There’s a story that goes like this, he thinks, one he’d heard a lifetime ago. If only it were that simple.
“Hope, sister.” He rises from his seat, eyes never leaving the still figure. Delta had never quite noticed the gentle slope of her nose or the smattering of freckles resembling wide-flung stars that somehow made her face glow a little brighter. “I’m looking at hope.”
Gamma arches an eyebrow. Perhaps she thought him utterly moronic. Or still reeling from the shock of battle. But there was no shock, only a terrifying stillness. The people who did this were still out there and they had Omega. Even their deaths seven times over would not prove retribution enough.
“And what might that mean?”
“You’ll see when she wakes.”
“If she wakes.”
“When,” he says sharply. Because it had to be. He wouldn’t accept another possibility.
He meets his sister’s eyes. She always managed to hold herself perfectly still which made her keen gaze all the more unsettling. She doesn’t push him on it.
“I suppose we’ll see then,” Gamma responds evenly.
He doesn’t hear her leave, only knows when she does. Her disapproval was evident but it didn’t matter. She would understand, in time.
An old emotion stirs, long forgotten but he still remembers the name. He’d fought for it once. Delta lets it hang in the silence of the room, the silence which he was beginning to resent because it no longer held her heartbeat, her smile. He realizes that foolishly he had begun to seek them out.
There was only the steady drip of the IV to punctuate his thoughts. For the first time in a long time, he felt off balance. He looks down at his hands. Unsure. Afraid.
Hopeful.
Human.
His breath stutters at the thought. Strands of hair brush his temple and he smooths them back in an effort to recollect himself to no avail. They stubbornly hang in his face.
Such was the thing with feelings best left buried.
A small exhale. Delta’s head snaps up. The cat settles back down once more, leaning into Anya. His shoulders loosen.
Once they rose, it was near impossible to stifle them again.
══════════════════
Hours become days. Days bled into a week. There is no time where she is, only an unending expanse of blue.
Until one day, something changes.
Air floods her lungs and she gasps, eyes flaring open. Anya heaves, gulping the oxygen down greedily. Her heart pounds like a fist against her ribcage and she places a hand over her chest.
That’s when she registers a pair of dark eyes above her. Anya startles. The woman tilts her head.
“Hello,” she says once Anya catches her breath. Her voice is like silk over steel.
“H—Hi?” Anya gets out.
The woman drags her inspecting gaze over her.
“Who are you?” Anya asks, fisting the sheets. A tube had been inserted into her wrist pumping a blueish-green liquid and tugged as she sat up.
“I’m Gamma. An unfortunate first meeting I’m afraid, but certainly one of my most interesting ones.”
Her mind caught up to her. “You’re their sister.”
She dips her head. “Yes. It appears they can’t be left alone too long without me.”
“Ah, it’s…nice to meet you.”
Gamma stares at her. It was extremely unnerving and Anya wonders if the knack for silence was a family trait.
“What is it?” she asks a little self-consciously.
“That’s not something I hear often.”
“Well, it’s not often I die and come back to life. At least, not as of late,” Anya remarks dryly.
Her lips twitch. It’s small, but it’s there.
Anya hesitates. “Where’s Delta?”
“I forced him to get some rest. He’s been in here for the past few days and hasn’t let anyone near you. Insists on handling your care himself, though he did say to inform him if I noticed any changes. I presume this counts.”
Days? She’d only ever been out for a few hours at most. There’s little time to process Gamma’s words.
A weight presses on Anya’s legs and it rumbles. She peeks down to see a black cat with dark purple eyes staring at her, its whiskers twitching. It rubs its head against Gamma’s side and her hand comes to smooth its fur almost on absent instinct.
“I—I wouldn’t want to wake him.”
“I was given specific instructions and the last thing I need is to hear him complain about anything else. I’ll do the waking, you may stay here."
Gamma turns to leave. Then stops. She speaks with her back turned.
“I suppose I owe you a thank you. For whatever reason you did, you risked your life for my brother. I don’t take such things lightly.”
The shadows of the room gather to follow her as she goes, the cat with her.
Anya leans back against the headboard. It was night out, a starless sea of black. She didn’t know what day it might be or exactly how long she’d been dead. The faraway glow of lights and the bag of what must be Dramaxil were the only sources of illumination. That, and her soulmate timer which remained the same. She let out a slow exhale at the sight.
It all began to catch up with her. Running, hiding. Killing the Wraith. Watching as they took aim at Delta and making the choice which had only seemed natural to her. His shocked expression as he realized what had happened, what she’d done.
He’d been here with her and kept the androids away knowing full well of her aversion to them. She drew the sheets up to her chest. She seemed clean and her clothes had been changed. Had he done it? The thought mortified her.
“Anya.”
She turns to the doorway where he stands. It takes her a moment to process the sight of him. Almost cautiously, he crept closer. Wary of startling her. Loose strands fell onto his face and shaded his dim green eyes, the spaces underneath bruised with exhaustion. He wore a rumpled dress shirt and slacks with his sleeves baring his forearms. Gone were the sharp and meticulous edges. The twilight softens him somehow, shadows limning his features. Delta’s gaze flits across her face and she watches his throat work.
Anya realizes she doesn’t recognize this version of Delta and yet he is all too familiar. They’d done this once before on a sweeping staircase under the stars. It hadn't been that long ago and yet it felt as if something vital between them had shifted. The floor beneath them was sure, steady. Neither one towered over the other. It was just them and this room, the darkness bidding them to say all the things they never would in the light of day.
As always, Delta takes the first step.
“How do you feel?” he asks slowly.
Was there even a way for her to answer that? She decides on a half-truth.
“I—I feel fine.” Anya fiddles with the tube so she doesn’t have to look at him and the lie he’ll surely pick out.
He barks out a sharp laugh and scrubs a hand across his face. She starts at the sound.
“Only you could say such a thing.” There’s an almost gentle fondness to his words and her head snaps up. Anya sucks in a breath at what she sees.
He’s looking at her, yes. But he’s never quite looked at her like this. Naked. Unguarded. She sees just how deeply his exhaustion lies. The bone-deep kind, the sort she’d felt for years before turning to Dreamscape.
“How are you feeling?” She repeats his question back to him, a reflex for someone like her. Innocuous enough and yet, Delta hesitates.
══════════════════
What did he feel?
Gamma had barely touched his shoulder and he’d woken. Delta’s strides are short and quick and it’s not fast enough. His sister watches carefully. She would have questions for him later no doubt. She’d granted him a grace period, the both of them otherwise occupied with staking out the Wraith’s location and preparing to bring Omega home.
He pauses outside the door. Attempts once more to slick his hair back and fails. He curses himself for his tenseness. There was hardly any need to knock and so with the slightest pressure he pushes the door open, steeling himself. He thinks he knows what to expect. In truth, he never does. Not with her. Not anymore.
She sits with her head angled at the ruined cityscape. Every thought in his head empties out.
The blue tone leeches her skin of colour and yet it was the loveliest sight he’d seen. Her gold-spun hair falls over the curve of her shoulder which rises and falls with each breath. If he strains to listen, he can hear the steady thump that he had so craved. He allows his eyes to shut for a whisper of a second to let the sound reassure him, lingering for no longer than necessary.
Delta says her name which has begun to fit all too naturally in his mouth. Another error he failed to foresee.
Anya turns to him.
He needs to say something. Twice now words have evaded him. None of it matters. She’s here with her eyes open and lips parted as if she wants to break the silence for him.
Delta settles on something safe. He asks how she feels as any caregiver would. He knows when she lies but he doesn’t feel the need to point it out. Instead, he does something uncharacteristic. He laughs. It’s a rough sound, short and sharp that surprises them both.
“How are you feeling?” she asks. “Your sister said you were here for a while…” she trails off and her face heats. His gaze lingers on her flush for a moment before flitting away.
He feels his lips tug. “You’ve just come back from death and you’re inquiring as to how I am doing?”
“Habit,” she says sheepishly.
“You’re a patient now. Try not to concern yourself with anything else than staying alive, though the notion may seem difficult to you.” It comes out with more of a bite than he intended and Anya notices.
She stiffens. “You’re upset with me.”
Upset? Was that what this feeling was? It trembled within, threatening his careful stance. The mask of neutrality he was trying—and failing to hold. So much of him had begun to slip since that day. Had been slipping for some time before that. Some last line of defensiveness rears its head.
“I told you to hide. Not run onto a battlefield.”
It was her turn to arch a brow. “You have an odd way of saying thank you.”
“You died, Anya.” He stresses the word. As he speaks the memories flash all over again. Her blood spattering the snow, counting the spaces in between each of her fading breaths and the moment that seemed to stretch on with no end.
“I knew what would happen,” she says quietly but not weakly, “I made that choice. And I’d do it again if I had to.”
It was the question that had been clawing at him. It escapes his grasp in a low fractured exhale; “Why?”
Anya twists at the sheets. He’s not sure if it’s seconds or minutes that go by as she contemplates what answer to give. How to say it.
“It…it all happened so fast. I saw their guns pointed at you and I just moved. The only thing I could think about was that I…I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
Delta’s body goes utterly still. He’s not sure if he’s breathing.
“Is that really so hard to believe?” she whispers when he doesn’t respond. “Their weapons nearly brought Omega down. I knew I had a better chance—”
“Your life isn’t some gamble,” he finally snaps. “We have no idea if they would have killed you for good.”
“But they didn’t.”
“It was close enough.”
Anya fell silent. He knew she could see him, all of him. The pupils that were slightly too wide, the uneven heave of his chest. This weakness which had plagued him from the moment he'd felt her final heartbeat.
“Did I worry you?”
“Is that so hard to believe?” he says softly. A moment passes between them. Charged with so many things said and unsaid.
And then—
There it was. A sliver of sunlight curves her mouth. It’s the warmest thing he’s felt in days. This one bleeds into her eyes rather than from her lips.
“You’re an odd woman you know.” He sinks into the mattress at her side. Anya shifts to make room for him. “Smiling at things you shouldn’t.”
“So I’ve been told.” She hesitates. “Thank you, by the way. For staying with me. For making sure I wasn’t alone.” Delta tries not to look too closely at the way she holds herself. As if she would come apart if she let go.
Instead, he swallows. Looks away. “Don’t thank me.” His voice is coarse. It grates like sandpaper in his throat. “Not for anything.”
“Why not?”
He knew now what this feeling was, why he kept seeing her face, her eyes in everything. The nights he’d spent in a silent vigil over her, a restless sentry. The fear that if he left her even for a moment she would slip from his grasp for good. Though why she may still live and breathe, she would forever haunt him.
“I failed you. I…I asked you to trust me. I swore to protect you, and I failed.” He rests his gaze on hers. Lets her feel the weight of it. “Forgive me.”
Anya moves closer. As close as the drip in her arm would allow. “I can’t.”
A sharp pain pierces under his rib—
“—because there’s nothing to forgive. I made the decision to come with you, I chose to save you. My choices are my own. Please, don’t take that from me.”
A pause. “I see. Then will you accept my gratitude?”
“I think I can do that much.”
“How benevolent of you,” he says dryly.
Her laugh is unlike anything he’s heard. Falling stars must sound like this, he thinks. Delta finds that he likes it far better than her days spent in hollow silence or the screams of her sleepless nights. It was a sound he’d do terrible things to hear again.
“In the spirit of my great benevolence, why don’t we call it even?” she suggests.
“Hm.”
“I’ll take that as a yes from you.”
Her faint smile dims. Anya suddenly sits up straighter. “What happened after I died?”
It was like a candle had been snuffed out. His features became impassive.
“They escaped. Fortunately, Gamma was able to trace their hideout, we’ve been monitoring them ever since.”
Anya nods slowly. She tugs on the tube almost painfully. With one hand he reaches out and stops her. Her hands go still.
“Did you know they wanted me?”
“I had a theory. But don’t be mistaken, Anya.” With the slightest touch, he angles her chin towards him. Her breath catches. “I never meant to use you as bait. Nor would I have never given you to them.”
“I know.” Her voice is little more than a whisper. It brushes against his palm in a delicate caress “That’s not why I—” she clears her throat. “How did they know about me?”
“I intend to find that out among other things. As soon as we retrieve Omega and I have my hands on those vermin.”
“When are we going?”
“Gamma and I will be leaving soon.” He withdraws his hands. “You will remain here.”
“But—”
“It’s already been decided.”
“By you.”
“Yes.” His tone is flat, unwavering.
Anya’s eyes harden into chips of green ice. He knew that look. She wouldn’t back down from this and it delighted and frustrated him in equal measure.
“I proved I can handle myself out there. Let me help you," she insists.
“You can help me by staying here.” Delta rises from the bed. He isn’t trying to flee, he tells himself. It rings hollow.
“Delta—”
"Please, Anya.”
She halts at the raw plea. There was something exposed in his gaze, anguish laid bare. He knows he should throw up his walls. Fortify his defences, shore up any weakness. As a commander, war was what he knew.
But this wasn’t battle.
It was a surrender.
“Please,” he says again, this time more quietly. “Stay. Let us bring them back.”
Her resolve wavers. It's not enough.
“Listen to me, Anya. Staying out of danger and taking time to heal does not make you weak. I will never see you as such.”
I’m the weak one. I can’t watch you be hurt again. I think I’ll become someone I don’t recognize if I have to watch you die again.
“I asked you once before to trust me. Does that still hold true?” Delta tries to act as if her answer won’t shatter him.
A beat passes.
“I do trust you,” she whispers. His relief is a sharp sting.
“But we need to agree on something first,” she says.
“Oh? Another deal?” he tries for humour.
“No.” Her gaze cuts across his own. “A promise.”
Delta falters.
“Promise me you’ll be careful. Promise that you’ll come back, safe. That all of you will.”
Warmth blooms in his chest.
“I promise,” he murmurs. An absurdly human expression and yet he couldn’t find it in himself to deny her.
She exhales. “Okay.”
He doesn’t mention that he had already made a silent oath of his own, head bowed over her lifeless figure. Never again would she know pain, not while he still drew breath. That the people who had done this would suffer at his hands for daring to hurt his family, for making a liar out of him when he’d sworn to protect her. He was the creature humans feared. By his side, she would be safe. He could make it so.
Anya’s expression is soft, open as she looks at him. No apprehension to be found, another perplexing quality of hers. Her brows are drawn as she awaits his response.
A different flame kindled. Not rage but—something else. Dangerous. A different sort of desire, near impossible to smother. The numbers on her wrist flash as she runs a hand through her hair. It’s an inconsequential motion but the sight is a leaden weight in the pit of his stomach.
He feared she would soon set him ablaze. Even more terrified that he might not fight it. He’d been burned once, long ago. Had never forgotten the consequences of his hope, what it had cost his family.
But she was here. And she wasn’t afraid. And so Delta allowed himself to be beckoned by the heat.
Some pain, he reasoned, could be quite exquisite.