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Kate’s lungs filled with one last breath before the water melted over the tip of her nose like a seal of wax and dragged her under.
For a moment, the surface still held her reflection—the commander, the scientist, the daughter—and then it swallowed her name on the lips of a man who desperately, pointlessly, heartbreakingly tried to reach for her and foolishly offered himself as a sacrifice instead.
Amid the fading clamour of her people yelling in protest, sobbing in despair, arguing in disbelief, Kate’s mind drifted to Osgood, her brilliant, idealistic, and selfless counterpart. Only now did Kate truly understand the flicker of wavering emotion in Osgood’s eyes whenever they had spoken of the pride and responsibility that came with volunteering to uphold the peace treaty.
The pressure gathered around her shoulders, heavy as the world she had kept from breaking.
It had been the only way after catastrophic weeks marked by death notices, explosions, and cities flooding, water licking at stone and seeping into walls until buildings threatened to collapse. The world had descended into chaos, and in the eye of the storm, amid the front lines, Kate’s decision had been like an avalanche: from a single snowflake of clarity to a roar of unstoppable force. She had watched soldiers and scientists sacrifice themselves at her feet, and she could endure it no longer.
Hadn’t she joined UNIT for this very purpose? To stand at the forefront herself? Her fighting spirit, her thirst for scientific progress, all of it had changed, formed herself and the way UNIT operated.
When she had stepped forward and faced the Sea Devils with her proposition—her life, her body, her mind, and soul used to anchor the two sides together as a dormant weapon and symbol of equilibrium between them, Kate had heard the sharp, biting, begging, “No, Kate, you can’t do this.” that had come from Chris, but she supposed it had been her destiny all along.
Her midnight ink uniform drifted like a banner in the dim light, hair haloed with the shimmer of the sun’s last reach, the gentle caress of a dying star that still, despite, and ever so beautifully warmed her aching chest.
If Andromeda had been chained to a stone for her people, Kate’s chains were made of choice; the peacekeeper between the land and the sea. And as the last of the air escaped her lips in a shimmer of bubbles, she imagined Ophelia’s drift among the lilies and knew that where Ophelia drowned in sorrow, she would forever drown in purpose.
And the water gurgled and sputtered around her in tones akin to burial melodies. She would hear and she would feel and she would see, as was the demand for her stasis. Her ears set to the blood rushing through her body, the heartbeat kept alive by the Sea Devil’s pure mercy, her body standing still in the movements of water, and her eyes directed at the surface far out of her reach.
It was mercy and punishment alike.
The ocean sang and sang, and Kate sank and sank.
All she could hope now was that the balance was resolved, that no more lives would be lost.
Between the currents, there was no telling whether the pressure on her palms was the water or her parents holding her hands for as long as Kate would dwell in the ocean.