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After he and Athena had left the Pope's palace, going up to the Statue seemed more and more dangerous. At such height Athena would be extremely exposed, Saints or no Saints. Hypnos and Thanatos, too, might be skulking about.
"That's a risk I have to take." Athena gestured at the statue with her staff. "Nowhere else is my Cosmo stronger than here."
"We will have your back at all times."
Instead of thanking him, she took his hand in both of hers. His heart stilled. Under the black clouds that Hades had summoned, her eyes were slate blue, charged with energy.
"Where are your fellow Gold Saints?" Athena asked. Only, to him, she had become more than the goddess he had sworn to protect. And they were alone for the moment. The fact both thrilled and discouraged him.
"They're coming."
She pressed his hand against her cheek, briefly but with such force that he almost didn't feel it when she let go. "This isn't goodbye," she whispered. "Hades will return, and there will be other Gemini Saints."
None of whom would love her as much as he did, or even know of that love. But he kept the anxiety to himself. "Shall we?"
"Yes," she replied, and he was swept with the desire to gather her close, shield her from the inexorable onslaught of time and death.
1987
In light of what he had gone through, Saga was prepared for nightmares. A whole slew of them, or a few genuinely upsetting ones, it made little difference. What shook him, however, was how vivid the details were.
Two months after the Gold Saints arrived back in Sanctuary, Saga relived those guilt-ridden thirteen years in one long, tortuous night. The dream was so intense it was more like time travel. He woke up convinced that Athena hadn't brought them back to life, that Hades had somehow cheated them out of salvation.
On the following night he dreamed of a Gemini Saint he had never met. This Gemini Saint, wide-shouldered and low-voiced, stood by Athena as Hades began to unleash his darkness. Saga saw the two of them hurry across the empty Pope's palace. They stopped halfway, and something in their gaze struck him as familiar. When the Gemini Saint bent down to kiss his Athena, the dream ended in a blink.
Saga stayed outside until the break of dawn, vaguely wishing he had some of Kanon's dubious habits to help dull the longing.
Having heard that Athena had landed in Greece, Saga waited for her outside the Twelve Houses. Despite her attire and staff, he was reminded that the Bronze Saints called her Saori. It somehow comforted him that, besides being Athena, she was also this other, mortal girl.
Her first question was, "Have you and the others settled in yet?" and he made up his mind. Whatever had transpired between Athena and another Gemini Saint was in the past. The present Athena cared equally for all her Saints; to think otherwise was to disrespect her.
"We're fine," he heard his mouth say. "What brings you to Sanctuary?" Falling easily into his designated role, that of an attentive warrior.
Walking toward the Aries Temple, they discussed what little news there was on the Gold Saints and Sanctuary in general. With each step, however, Saga's conviction of the dream's insignificance began to wane. Apparently he hadn't stayed awake long enough last night to wipe out traces of that dream. Or perhaps it was the sunlight caught in the hair cascading down Athena's - Saori's? - back, and the faint lavender scent of her skin.
Madness, he told himself. To have a lifelong belief shaken by one dream. And yet -
"Have you been sleeping well?"
Startled, he focused his attention back at her. "Yes."
"Oh, that's good to hear. No nightmares either, I trust."
Suddenly he didn't want to hold back. "What do you remember about the previous wars, the Athenas before you?"
She stopped to peer up at him. Her frame, slender and unencumbered by her Cloth, would fit perfectly within his arms. The Gemini Saint of his dream would have known it for a fact.
Madness, Saga thought again, but less severely than before.
"Mostly it's about the gods and their armies." Her words came out softly, with a touch of amazement. "How their defeats have never affected their confidence. Maybe if I, for instance, deal with Hades on my own, without the Saints to back me up. Not that it's ever going to happen."
He considered some platitude about how the Saints would always support her, then decided against it.
"Sometimes I also dream about those long-ago Saints," she added. "Some of them more than others."
She looked away, blushing a little, and the most outrageous idea hit him: she had seen the same thing he had in her own dream. "Must be difficult for you," he muttered.
"It's not so bad." The blush receded, but the memory of it had been imprinted on his mind. One corner of her mouth went up. "A whole lot better than being in battle, at least."
When her Cosmo announced her arrival at the Gemini Temple, Saga met her at the exit. Having left her staff at the Pope's palace, she looked smaller without it. This gesture, more than anything else, drove home to him that the war had finally ended.
"Just checking up on everyone while I'm here," she explained. Her eyes were dark turquoise in the starlight, a sight he was sure he had seen before. Not when he killed himself or when Hades attacked Sanctuary, but long before that.
Ages before that, his mind whispered.
"Then I'll escort you back to the Pope's palace. You're staying there tonight, aren't you?" There he went again, gallantly taking charge of the situation.
"Yes."
Her hand reached out, and he stiffened in reflex when it rested lightly on his wrist. Then all tension surged away from him, as smoothly as water flowing over river stones. She knew, and she was undaunted. Not because they were condemned to repeat the past, but because she noticed his feelings. And, unless he was deluded, she was more than willing to return them.
If she was not afraid, then he had no reason to be.
When her other hand sought his, he caught her fingers and brought them to his chest. For the first time that day, she smiled. His heart ached, for them and for the two people in his dream. "Thank you for the offer," she murmured. "Although I don't have to go to the palace right away."