Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The interrogation room was cold and Pen would know, because he had spent a considerable amount of time in there in the last weeks. The only silver lining was that, this time, they had at least avoided handcuffing him, but it was a small consolation in the face of the stony-faced officer that was glaring at him from behind a desk, full of dossiers, and the oppressive silence around them. The awkward stand-off had gone on long enough, so Pen decided that what the hell, he would go first if the other man wouldn’t.

“I have to admit, I’m not sure how this works now. I mean, I've got the whole ‘give up on Duvos, give us the names of the operatives still hidden and you’ll get a reduced sentence’ routine down, but this? Actual uncharted territory.”

His attempt at humor fell on deaf ears, but at least he got a sneer out of the officer in front of him. They had told him his name earlier: Commander…something. Anthony? Alfred? Pen did not remember…nor care, to be honest.

“Let me get straight to the point. The list of crimes you have committed is quite sizable, and you aren’t going to burn them away so easily.”

Oh, so he wasn’t a mute after all! Pen shrugged.

“I thought that betraying my country and helping save your city would get me at least a few years shaved away.”

The Commander in front of him grimaced.

“As much as it pains me to admit it, it does. Far more than I would have given you, but I was overruled. And I suppose that you’ll have quite the number of interesting names and missions that your countrymen are undertaking in our territory to give us, which would be worth another discount.”

Oh, if only that had been so easy. It was his turn to grimace.

“Trust me, if I knew the cover identity of every agent in the Alliance and all their operations going on right now, I would give them to you. After the stunt I've pulled off, I am a dead man walking as far as Duvos is concerned; if I'd manage to remove everyone here I’d get at least five years of calm before I’d have to worry about assassins again. Alas, that’s not the case…but yeah, you’ll get what I know. Do you have a notebook ready for-”

He was interrupted before he could finish.

“There will be time for that later. Right now, that’s not why I’m here.”

He couldn’t help but blink a few times: he had supposed the man in front of him was there to take his confession and information...but if he wasn’t, what was he after? He waited, but the silence stretched for far more than he was comfortable with; he cleared his throat before speaking again.

“Do I have to ask the obvious rhetorical question, or…?”

The Commander steepled his fingers under his chin before answering.

“I want to know why.”

Again, Pen just blinked.

“...why? Why what?”

The man in front of him sighed.

“If what I’ve heard was correct, you and your co-conspirators pretty much had Sandrock in your grasp, and those engines in the Ruins ready to go. One would think that you had, airquotes, ‘won’.”

He paused as he narrowed his eyes.

“And yet, almost at the apex, right before you could wrap that mission up, you turned on the others. Forgive me for being a little bit skeptical about you suddenly finding the Light.”

Okay, this was just ridiculous.

“...I hope you aren’t implying that me betraying my country, my people and generally throwing everything I’ve spent my entire life working towards is just a cover for another mission. I mean, gaining your trust and all that so I can betray you later down the line could be a good idea, but ruining a years-long plan in order to do that? That would be stupid, plain and simple.”

He might have missed it had he not paid enough attention, but the man in front of him had actually smirked for a second before shaking his head.

“As much as I’ve learned to never underestimate Duvos’ intelligence services…no, that’s too convoluted for that to be likely. I don’t doubt that you really turned traitor.”

Pen's next questions tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop himself. 

“Then why ask? That’s kinda my business, don’t you think?”

The Commander immediately shot him a glare that made Pen feel like he was being skewered and exposed for everyone to see. He was being…studied, and the thought slightly unnerved him.

“I don’t think you have really understood why I’m here. Helping save Sandrock and giving us a few names is going to help your case, but you are still going to spend quite a lot of years behind bars. The exact amount of those years is still to be decided, and what I am here to do is to see just how much clemency you deserve. In order to do that, I’ll need to know your motivations. You should know that I was the most critical about cutting your sentence, so I'd try your best to convince me if I were you.”

Something stern, harsh, entered the man's tone as he continued.

“What you tell me now will make the difference between spending the next ten years in a maximum security prison, and believe me it’s still a major improvement over what your original sentence would have been, or us meeting halfway, both about the time and nature of your punishment. And don’t think you can bullshit me, I want the truth.”

Pen couldn’t help but recognize stubborness in the officer in front of him…and, so far, he had quite the experience dealing with stubborness. He shook his head.

“I am not really going to get out of this, am I?”

Once again, the man in front of him smirked briefly…but this time, he didn’t bother hiding it.

“Well, you can keep your mouth shut and I can save you a warm spot in that prison if you prefer to. That will definitely make my job easier.”

Oh, now he was being mocked, fantastic.

“Fine. The short version is, the price this time was too high.”

The way the gaze fixed on him didn’t change immediately told him that, sadly, that wasn’t enough.

“I am going to need more details than that.”

Called it. Pen had to stop himself from sneering.

“You realize this is a very, very personal matter, right?”

He had hoped that such an admission would make the officer in front of him desist…but, of course, his hopes were shattered as the man shrugged instead.

“I suspected as much.”

This time, he didn’t manage to stop a groan.

“I hate you.”

He was offered another brief smirk.

“Duly noted, and understandable. Now, if you please…?”

He was not getting out of this, no matter how much he loathed the idea of confessing what he had done and most importantly why, without lying, to this stone faced asshole in front of him. But…if this was the only chance he had to not rot in jail for who knows how long he would take it, no matter how unpleasant.

“Fine. I had the bad idea of getting involved with a girl here. Best partner I’ve ever been with, but Command noticed how much she was starting to,” he had to stop halfway, his mouth suddenly dry at the thought of confessing something so intimate to the Alliance military dog that was currently judging him, “mean to me. So, they decided that it was time for a loyalty test, can't have an operative with a possible conflict of interest. She was to be taken to Duvos, willing or not, and I had to be the one to carry out that sentence either way.”

He closed his eyes, trying to not look at the man in front of him.

“I tried to convince her to come willingly, of course. But she was too stubborn to let herself be swayed that way.”

He stopped, but after just a few seconds the Alliance officer spoke again, his tone firm.

“Go on.”

No sense stopping now…this was hell, but he supposed he had deserved every second of it.

“I decided to make one last attempt just after we had taken the city. She refused once again, of course. And then…well. Then, she managed to change my mind.”

Pen allowed himself one small sardonic smile, then, his hesitation temporarily forgotten, launched himself into the retelling of how he had fucked up his entire life in one fell swoop.

Chapter Text

If someone had told Pen that just a handful of simple phrases could bring the most unimaginable pain he had ever felt, he would have laughed in their faces. How could words damage him, a mighty duvosian Knight and survivor of countless fights? He had experienced worse…no, he had thrived despite far worse being inflicted on him. 

And yet…

“Pen. Please, I’m begging you. Help me.”

Breath hitched in his throat as he turned from the door he was facing towards her before he could stop himself. Her, his stubborn lover, his beautiful Valkyrie, his Skinny Arms, Alyx…now a bruised mess, defeated and slumped over a stool with her hands tied behind her, her face streaked with tears as she looked at him with something resembling hope.

He had never heard her asking for help. She had always been too stubborn and too prideful to admit her limits, even when she had clearly struggled. No matter what was happening, he had always seen her grit her teeth and go on despite everything: she hated being seen as weak. He had always approved that part of her, because that’s what he had been raised to do himself: never show weakness, because the enemy will not hesitate a single instant to seize the moment and kill you. 

He despised weakness, how could he not? He had been forged to eliminate any kind of impurity that would hinder his job, leaving only a perfect weapon behind. He was a sword to be wielded in the service of his country, anything else of him outside that was only a decoration that could be thrown away had it become a hindrance. 

Now the man, the part of him that should have been only a cover for the real him, wanted nothing more than to go to her, blast away those damn handcuffs they had insisted to put on her and kiss her until her tears were no more…and Pen almost did so, before the Knight, the duvosian officer, reminded him what he really was, what was his duty, what would be the cost of reasoning with his feelings instead of letting his training take over. How much time had he spent trying to claw his way up the hierarchy? For how long had he dreamed the rewards this mission would give him once he had returned home?

The Commander had almost won the battle against the man when she lowered her head again, her next words coming out no louder than a whisper.

“You’re the only one that can help me.”

Something inside him snapped at that, filling his chest with a blaze of fury so all-encompassing to erase his previous thoughts and so violent that not even years of training could stop.

How dare she?

“Do you think this is something you get to ask of me?” he sneered, moving with decisive steps towards the woman in front of him.

“I-” she started, but he didn’t want to hear whatever excuse she was going to say, not until he had spoken.

“Do you think you can reject me like you did, and then turn around and cry and ask me to throw everything away for you?!”

He saw her lips thin into a line as she lowered her eyes to the ground after a moment of surprise…and, for some reason, that pissed him off even more. Now what, she didn’t want to face him after what she had done? He had grabbed her face and had forced her to look up before he knew what he was doing.

“Look at me! Look at me, damn it!”

That was the moment where, finally, a voice in the back of his head managed to break through the haze of the rage he was feeling, telling him to stop before he could do something he would regret. He sharply breathed in, then let Alyx’s face go as he continued, his tone becoming bitter.

“I would have given you everything had you come with me. I would have spent the rest of my life trying to make you happy. I would not have allowed anyone to hurt you. And you threw that back in my face.”

He didn’t know what he was expecting to get by confessing that. She wouldn’t change her mind, so what did he gain by leaving himself open like this? He needed to get rid of the affection he had for her, not stoking the feelings still burning inside him by admitting that.

No matter what he had hoped to do, he sure didn’t expect her to briefly laugh, a small pained sound that was made even sadder by the tears building up again in her eyes.

“Making me happy? Sure, until Duvos asked you to do otherwise.”

Oh, so he had to believe that was the reason she had rejected him? Pen found himself gritting his teeth and spitting out his next phrase, lacing it with venom.

“Don’t try that shit with me. You didn’t hesitate one single second before turning on me when the truth came out, you don’t get to throw around excuses now.”

He saw her expression shift, pain and rage mixing in equal parts.

“Do you think it was easy? To know that the man I love had been an enemy all along? And do you even hear yourself?! Do you know what Duvos does? How can you expect me to-”

He had grabbed her shoulders harshly before he could register his intention to do so, his thoughts a mess of pain and rage reignited.

HOW. DARE. SHE.

“I DO! I GREW UP THERE! I AM AT ITS SERVICE! YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT!”

She didn’t know what he had survived, and it was with a moment of sudden clarity that he realized that no, she did not know and he absolutely didn’t want her to. The horrors he had survived during his childhood and during training were something he would have given his right hand to keep as separate as possible from her…and he was there, about to drag her right into a similar nightmare, one without end.

What was he doing?

He felt like his guts were twisting and catching fire all together, as a wave of shame pushed right through him despite the voice of the Commander inside him still whispering that he was doing the right thing, all for the glory of Duvos. He found himself kneeling in front of her, the grip on her shoulders becoming him desperately holding on to her as they looked each other in the eyes.

“You don’t know what it’s like. Whatever second-hand knowledge you have, it’s not enough. You don’t know, you can’t know,” he confessed, and it sounded so wrong coming out of him. He was supposed to be invincible, a perfect machine…and look at him now. The mighty Commander Pen, kneeling in an interrogation room in the middle of nowhere, his throat so tight that just speaking took an immense effort.

“Then how could I ever be happy imprisoned there, even if I came willingly and cooperated? How could you?” she whispered, and everything felt so disgustingly intimate, a time for painful confessions that neither of them really want to hear.

A good part of him wanted to just surrender, but of course both his pride and the Knight inside him would not have allowed him to do so without a fight. He shook his head.

“I am not imprisoned anywhere, Skinny.”

He did not miss the way her lips pursed again for a second or two.

“I might be handcuffed, Pen, but your hands are even more tied than mine.”

Then, in a move that surprised even him, she sighed, leaned forward and then closed her eyes as she pressed her forehead against his.

“Please, tell me the truth. Do you want to bring me to Duvos?”

That was the moment where all his defenses came crashing down…he was such a stupid idiot, such a stupid idiot in love. He found himself laughing, a short sound without the barest hint of mirth in it.

“As a prisoner? No.”

He sighed, closing his eyes and resisting the urge to nuzzle against her.

“It’s a loyalty test, Skinny. They want to know that my allegiance is still firmly reserved for Duvos. You and my…feelings for you are in the way of that, and they need to be neutralized.”

When he reopened his eyes, he found Alyx already looking at him, eyes wide in surprise and a million of other emotions darting around them. It reminded him of those little fishes in the ditch behind his childhood’s home, the ones he had never quite managed to catch despite his efforts.

“You…you truly loved me,” she said, in the end, hesitant like she was almost afraid to believe it.

He should have started to lie again, protect what little of his pride and dignity was left…but he was just so tired of it. He had lied his entire life, all he wanted now was to confess the truth, for once.

“No. Not ‘loved’. I still love you.”

For a second he thought she was about to cry again, but then she shook her head as she spoke again, her voice brittle.

“Smart, I guess. They make sure you are loyal at the start, and then they can keep you in line with me as a hostage.”

He blinked a few times…what? No, once he had won they wouldn’t…wait . It was with no small amount of horror that he understood that she was probably right, once they were in Duvos they could threaten retribution against them to force him to do anything, because there was very little in the world he would hesitate to tear down if it meant protecting her. He had thought the successful mission would give him more freedom, less horrible orders heaped on him, but what if instead all he got out of it were even more shackles?

He was still considering the implications when she sighed again.

“Why are you so loyal to them, Pen?”

He stiffened, his training kicking in as he found himself answering, “I am a Knight sworn in the service of…”

She did not let him finish.

“Bullshit. You are far more than that, or you could be if you wanted.”

She sounded so…sure of what she was saying. He wasn’t: without Duvos, without his training, or, hell, even without the experiment they had done on him, what was he? Nothing, probably. He shook his head again, slowly, before pressing his forehead against hers.

“You don’t know what it's like.”

“You have already told me that. Maybe you're right, but I can listen if you tell me.”

The defeated Knight inside him chose that moment to raise his head one last time, even if he didn’t manage to put much venom in his words after Pen scoffed.

“Are you so desperate to escape to accept even listening to me while I ramble?”

For a second, he feared that he had, once again, managed to ruin everything he had with his own hands. Why the hell had he said that, why did he keep feeling the need to hurt? But, instead, she chuckled. It was such a strange sound to hear inside an interrogation room coming from a tired and imprisoned woman.

“I listened to you so many times, Pen, even when I knew you were just bullshitting. I’ve never tired of it anyway,” she said, before stopping to look him straight in the eyes as she continued, “I would have never tired of you, as brash, rude and obnoxious as you were.”

There was… warmth, warmth and affection and love in that last phrase, shining through the tiredness and the sadness. He found himself looking into her eyes, her beautiful eyes…and then he moved one hand so that his fingers tangled in her hair, pulled her close and kissed her deeply. He had thought he would never feel her lips again, and now, even as chapped and salty from her tears as they were, they felt like heaven when she pressed against him and kissed him back. He was still losing himself in that kiss, in her, when he felt that she was trembling.

Oh no, no, no…he quickly pulled back to look at her and yes, she was definitely about to break down. He didn’t know exactly why, maybe it was just the stress getting at her, but he knew one thing for certain: he did not want to see her cry ever again. He immediately encircled her small frame with his arms, pulling her against his chest and then caressing her head with one hand.

“I’m…sorry. Skinny, I’m so sorry. Please, don’t cry.”

Spitting out those words felt…bad, somehow. He usually didn’t see the need to apologize, because of course he was never in the wrong (or so he told himself), but right now it was hard to not look at the trembling frame of this woman he had hurt so much and not feel regret.

As he held her as gently as he could, he found himself wondering whether he could get away with just having her escape and pretending in front of Tiger they had lost her somehow. But…there were too many moving parts in that plan, and Matilda would immediately suspect him had Skinny gone missing. And…well, he knew Alyx would never accept to just run away when her beloved city and her friends were imprisoned (and could be harmed in retaliation after her escape). No, he realized with no small amount of horror, the only way he could save her was to go traitor.

What a terrifying prospect. Even without considering the assassins that would immediately be sent against him, he found himself asking again what would remain of him without Duvos. He was just a weapon to be wielded, what would happen if he had wounded the hand that was supposed to use him? He would just be a useless, dangerous thing that no one would touch; he would be alone, hunted like a mangy beast, everything he had ever done conveniently forgotten as it would be replaced by the infamy reserved for traitors.

And yet…nothing he had ever won or been awarded in Duvos had felt like her affection, her love. Was he really throwing away that much, when the best thing he had was right there in his arms? 

He didn’t need much to decide; he had always been impulsive, after all.

“I will help you. I will help you save this town.”

She immediately pulled back from his chest, stopping once she was looking at him in the eyes again. She studied his expression for a few moments full of confusion, and then her eyes widened in what was clearly hope.

“Pen, I…” she started, but emotion clearly choked out whatever she wanted to add after that.

He felt so happy for a moment, but then he realized that, while he might love her above anything else, she only knew a part of him. She had no idea of what he really was, and the thought was enough to freeze his blood. She would leave him, she was so selfless and moral and he had so much blood on his hands, she would look at him with disgust and refuse to even remember that she had loved him. He found himself looking away, fixing his eyes on the nearest wall so he didn’t have to see the hope in her expression, a hope that she didn’t even know was so fragile.

“Don’t look at me that way. If you knew what I had to do to survive…if you knew what I’ve done, you’d run away immediately.”

If her hands had been free (oh, right, she was still handcuffed, add that to the pile of things she would resent him of) he was sure she would have caressed his jaw and turned his head, like she had done so many times before. Now, he only heard her sigh.

“They really did a number on you, didn’t they?”

Of course she said that. To her, Duvos was the enemy, so to reconcile that image with the one of a man she loved in her mind he must have been forced to do unspeakable acts against his will. He might have tried to go along with her idea, to try and save face when all he had done had come to light…but it felt so wrong, starting to lie again when he was trying to be truthful. He had not been exactly forced to do the vast majority of anything he did, not any more than she had when accepting time-consuming commissions. Would have they done it on their own without some kind of payoff? Not really, but it was different to say that they had been forced.

“I regret nothing I’ve done, Skinny.”

He heard her laugh, even if for just a moment.

“Sounds like you, yeah. But…you’re here, finally telling them to go to hell. For me. That means something, at least.”

Her tone had been so warm once again, so loving. He turned towards her again, wishing that she would never change her mind, even if his rational part knew it was just a stupid dream that was destined to be shattered.

“You’ll regret it.”

She simply shook her head, her expression so serenely affectionate it made Pen’s chest hurt.

“You are throwing away your life for me, the least I can do is to stand by you no matter what. So, no, I will not.”

She sounded so…sure, and stubborn as usual. She sounded like someone that would never turn on him again once Duvos was out of the equation. As stupid as that decision probably was, Pen decided to believe her, maybe because he needed to believe it.

He laughed curtly, before moving to plant one kiss on her forehead.

“You and your big heart, you’ll be the death of me.”

They had their moment, but now the coldly efficient part of him reminded him that he had no time to waste if he really wanted his stupidly risky plan to work. He raised on his feet once again, not even bothering to dust his knees, then moved his hands to cup her face gently, trying to avoid the wounds on the right side of her face.

“Listen. I’ll do right to you, okay? I just…I just need a day or so to set this up. Can you trust me again?”

To his immense relief, she nodded immediately, but then something impish entered in her expression. Wait, what…

“Let’s be real here, though, I don’t have much of a choice.”

He couldn’t help but smirk; how good it was to have his Skinny back.

“Oh, someone’s feeling a little better, I see.”

He forced himself to stay serious after that…no time, remember?

“Listen, I’ll try to be as quick as possible. Just keep your head down for now, okay? I’ll make sure you are safe in the meantime…I am still Commander Pen, after all. These tools know I’m not someone they want to piss off.”

He leaned down, planting one last kiss on her lips before reluctantly removing his hands from her face.

“Wait for me, Skinny. I’ll return for you.”

Pen had left, and a minute or so later a soldier had come into the interrogation room to bring her into the cell in the other room. 

Alyx had tried to keep her expression as neutral as possible, but her heart was singing. He loved her, and he would help her save Sandrock.

She had feared, in the last weeks, that she had been played for a fool, that he had just used her…and now she had proof that no, he had really loved her despite everything. And…well, while it was true that he was a duvosian officer and he must have done horrible things to get there (he had admitted that himself, even if he hadn’t mentioned  details), maybe he didn’t have a choice? When he had a choice, he had chosen to help her and, for once, she wanted to be selfish and weight that act of love towards her more than any sin he might have committed in the past.

Once she was shoved inside the cell after having her handcuffs removed, she gave a good look around: it's true, she needed Pen to have any chance to get out, but hell if she would sit on her hands and wait to be rescued like the pretty imprisoned princesses in those fairytales she had always hated as a child. She was a Builder, and a Builder always used what they had, no matter how little, to do their job. The first thing to do was to get anyone that could be of use in saving Sandrock ready when the time came.

There was Miguel sitting in a corner (and while she briefly wondered why they hadn’t freed him, she quickly decided that it wasn’t important right now), Cooper (for…some reason?) and then Unsuur and Justice. It was the latter she moved decisively towards.

“Alyx, you okay? We were worryin’...what happened?” Justice asked in a low voice once she was in front of her and had a moment to study her expression. She shook her head subtly, then she quickly tilted her head in the direction of the guards outside their cell: she really couldn’t be talking out loud (not even in whispers) about what had just happened when their jailers could eavesdrop, now could she? 

Luckily, Justice had always been rather sharp when he wanted.

“Unsuur? Do you mind goin' there and havin' a mighty fine talk with Cooper?”

Unsuur, bless his heart, wasn’t as quick.

“Uhm…about what, Sheriff?”

To his immense credit, Justice kept a straight face.

“I dunno, rocks? Just be sure to really get Cooper drawn in the conversation, we really need to cheer him up, don’t we?”

With that, she saw Unsuur's eyes light up for a second with recognition: he might have been a little slow on the uptake, but he was far from stupid.

“Ah. I see. Right away, Sheriff, I've always wanted to ask him about the minerals you could find in the Ranch.”

Unsuur moved towards the old yakboy, then they waited for a minute or so as the aspirant-deputy started a conversation with him. Only when the cell was filled with Cooper's voice Justice spoke again, his voice just above a whisper.

“To think that they put ol’ Coop in here because he was rantin’ too much…ah! Now, I can see that somethin’ has happened. Shoot!”

She gave a glance to the guards outside, but they seemed to be distracted by Cooper. Good.

“We might have a way out.”

Justice’s eyebrows raised immediately, but he forced his expression back into a neutral one as he continued. 

“Damn, that’s good news! Tell me the details!”

Well, about that…how could she put it?

“I don't have all the details myself…but, please, don’t get mad.”

“Why would I,” he started, before his expression shifted as he clearly got an inkling of what she was about to say, “oh. Alyx, please, tell me Pen ain’t involved.”

Well, about that. She had to resist the urge to fidget, if nothing else to not attract the guards’ attention on herself.

“...yeah. He's definitely involved. And no, I didn’t sell Sandrock out or something, before you go there. I think,” she started, before lowering her voice just as Cooper started a very loud rant about “that damn Yakmel poop”, “I've managed to get him to defect.”

Justice groaned.

“Alyx. I get it why you would believe him and I don’t really blame ya, but the man's a liar.”

No, she wouldn’t stand there and have the “oh, she's just a poor, stupid woman in love being played for a fool” card played, no matter how well intentioned the one applying that label on her was.

“He sounded genuine to me. And besides, what does he gain by lying about this? They have already won for now. If he didn’t want to help us, he could have said no, turned his back and gone away. It’s not like I could have forced him somehow.”

Justice breathed in, gave one look at the guards (yes, their attention was still on Cooper) and then continued.

“Okay, maybe you're right, but what if he changes his mind?”

That was…actually a real possibility, and a big problem. There was nothing that guaranteed that he wouldn’t change his mind, that, later, he wouldn't think about his options logically and that he wouldn’t decide that she wasn’t worth it, after all.

However…

Can you trust me again?

She had said she would stand by him, and this was the first time to show that she had meant it: she would trust him, and stand strong in the face of the (legitimate) doubts of Justice now, and everyone else later.

“He could, but he won't. Besides, I was the one who took the plunge, I will be the one bearing the brunt of it if this goes wrong.”

If Pen was lying or changed his mind, then her only possible future was one of captivity in Duvos, but the rest of Sandrock was probably safe. However, she realized that she had probably spoken too much when Justice frowned.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She really didn’t need to put that on the shoulders of Justice, he already had enough to worry about.

“It’s…not important. Please. Trust in me this time, okay?”

Justice sighed softly.

“You, I trust. Him, not so much. Be careful.”

Any answer she might have given to that was interrupted by one of the guards suddenly banging their baton on the outer bars of the cell, before shouting: “HEY! Shut up, old man, I'm getting a migraine! And you two in the back, stop whispering to each other!”

Welp, at least she had said everything that needed to be said for now, so she moved two steps away from Justice to avoid the ire of their jailer. 

Now with nothing to do she realized that, for the moment, the best thing she could do was to rest. She moved towards the nearest wall, sat with her back against it, hugged her knees and then laid her head over them.

I'm in your hands now, Pen.

Chapter Text

The commanding officer in charge of Sandrock's occupation, a certain Commander Lefu Pen only barely knew by reputation alone, had taken over Matilda’s old home to use as a base of operations. The Knight was now sitting in front of the table Lefu had picked, watching the man pointing at various locations on the map of Sandrock in front of him as Lefu recounted their arrival. Pen was, as usual, dutifully pretending to concentrate on what the other was saying without really listening. Sometimes he raised his eyes, giving a look towards the small private (probably some kind of assistant) behind Lefu, but to be fair he didn’t care much.

When, to his immense relief, he sensed that the Commander had finished with his spiel he nodded.

“Perfect. If that’s all, then I should get going ASAP. I will need to leave for the Ruins shortly, after all.”

That was, to put it simply, a bluff. There was one last matter he absolutely needed to address, but he was hoping Lefu would bring it up. Turns out, luck was on Pen's side this time, as Lefu immediately asked another question.

“By the way, Sir, how did your conversation go? Was it as bountiful as you hoped?”

Technically speaking, he and the man in front of him shared the same rank, so that deference should have been unwarranted. However, being a Knight put him in a higher position in the hierarchy, and no Knight worth their salt would have allowed anyone else to forget it. But either way, before Pen’s…drastic change of plans, he had communicated Lefu his intention to try and sway a talented Builder to the cause (once she regained consciousness, that is), so no wonder the officer wanted to know how that particular endeavor had gone.

Pen shrugged with nonchalance, as if it was just a minor matter he had almost forgotten about, then he briefly licked his lips before answering.

“Oh, that, right. I think I’ve actually managed to convince her, she seemed receptive to the idea of joining Duvos, if a bit hesitant. Understandable, I would have suspected some kind of deception had she agreed immediately. ”

He leaned back into the chair, stretching his back for a second as he continued.

“She just needs a bit of time stewing over it, I think. But now that you reminded me…”

He slammed his hand on the table, which made Lefu (and the soldier behind him) startle for an instant before he could control his reaction. Pen didn’t even have to fake the cold fury burning for a second in his eyes, because the thought of anyone putting their dirty hands on Skinny while she couldn’t defend herself made him want to snap a few necks.

“I will not have all my work so far to secure such a talented Builder for us ruined because some idiot soldier is pissed or thinking with his dick.”

Lefu, his composure regained, raised his palms in the air for a second as he answered.

“Ah, no reason for concern. Tiger’s orders were very clear already, and if this Builder is coming around I doubt she’d do anything that would force us to use a heavy hand.”

The man was silent for a second or two, then clicked his tongue.

“Now that I think about it, Sir, why don’t we have her do some jobs for us? We have a constant need for high quality supplies.”

Pen stared at Lefu for a few seconds, his expression blank.

“...while in the cell?”

The other officer shrugged.

“No, we’d have to let her out, but of course she’d have a guard assigned to her. Besides, if she’s considering the idea of joining, the chance she’d try to escape is very narrow anyway. And regarding your last concerns…I was thinking of assigning her my personal assistant as a warden. Our Stev here,” he said while gesturing with his head towards the soldier behind him, “is a gentleman, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Oh, this was an incredible stroke of luck! Not only having Skinny already out and working in an isolated part of town made everything ten times easier, he hadn’t even been the one to propose that! If he had done so, he might have risked to make Lefu maybe not suspicious, but surely wonder why he (the dreaded Commander Pen) seemed to be so generous with this Builder. And this “Stev”…Pen moved his eyes once again on the small-ish soldier as he saluted. Was that a hint of nervousness he could feel coming from this pipsqueak once that his attention was fully on him? Good to know that his reputation was still intact even after years undercover away from Duvos. Anyway, hmmm…Skinny herself could break him in two like a twig, he wasn’t going to be a problem.

He stroked his chin for a second or two, pretending to be deep in thought, before nodding.

“Hm. It could help showing her that we are not the monsters Alliance propaganda says we are. Why not, go for it.”

Pen was about to get up when Lefu cleared his throat again. Ugh, what now?

“Ah, and Sir? We have found traces of the outlaw that attacked us while we were crossing the desert towards the city. He seems to be moving towards the Northern Plateau.”

Logan. Pen gritted his teeth for a second or two, but then his gears started to turn in his head as a plan formed. Maybe, this time, that little thorn in his side could actually be useful for something.

He forced himself to relax once again as he answered Lefu.

“I will report this to Tiger, then deal with him myself. The ruins and the town are firmly under our control, we can’t risk having a single, resourceful bandit ruin everything.”

Of course, he was going to immediately suggest to Matilda that Logan had left a false trail and was actually lurking around Sandrock to try and free it, so Pen would have a valid reason to return. Man, he really was a genius when motivated enough!

“Very well, if that’s all I suppose we will see each other again on the airship when the mission is over, Lefu. For the Empire!”

He had to resist the urge to smirk as Lefu and his assistant saluted back…for the Empire, indeed. 

They were in for a big surprise.

Alyx stretched a bit into the afternoon sun the second she was out of Sandrock’s jail, but the footsteps behind her of the small-ish soldier they had assigned to keep an eye on her reminded that freedom was still quite far…for now. 

An officer had come into the jail earlier and told her that she was to work for, presumably, the “glory of the Empire” and build him a…bathtub. Yeah, she had asked if he really meant “bathtub” and the answer had been “no, I said a jacuzzi”. The second Pen busted her out of this situation (because yes , she still was sure he would), she was going to punch this Lefu asshole as hard as she could, but for now she had to play along.

Anyway, they were sending her to work in her workshop, so of course they had assigned her a soldier to guard her and to make sure she would not do the reasonable thing of running away as soon as their backs were turned. She probably wouldn’t have done that either way, not even if Pen hadn’t been part of the equation, because she wasn’t naive enough to think that there wouldn’t be dire consequences in retaliation to her escape...but hey, it’s not like they could know it. 

The good part was, this Stev seemed like an actual decent person (or a very polite one): he had actually taken a moment to greet her, explain that he was supposed to look at her and make sure she wasn’t bothered. To top that, he had concluded with a “please let me know if you need anything”, then coughed and added “...within reason, of course” with a far shier tone. She had actually commented how he seemed like a nice fellow for a duvosian soldier, and his answer had been, essentially, “soldiers are people too, and I don’t like causing unnecessary pain”. She…kinda disagreed with the first part, but she wasn’t about to antagonize the man that could make her next day or so hell.

They were walking down main street now, going towards her workshop and the looks the soldiers around Main Street were giving her were starting to make her nervous. They were probably wondering what a civilian was doing walking around, which suddenly made the presence of the man walking just right behind her ten times more welcome, but still. She tried to concentrate on the snippets of conversation around her, trying to distract herself as much as she could (and, if she could hear something interesting while she was at it, even better).

That’s when she heard it.

“...so arrogant. I mean, Knights always kinda are, but…”

“I’ve heard they experimented on him, that’s why he’s so strong.”

She stopped right in her tracks, her mouth suddenly dry. Stev, behind her, immediately noticed.

“Miss…?”

She was barely registering his presence at this point. She could do nothing but to look at the two soldiers leaning over the balcony of Vivi’s shop and house, even as the two noticed and turned to look at her.

Knight. Experimented on him.

“Hey, the hell you looking at, girlie? Can’t believe how handsome I am?”

She barely realized that one of the two soldiers was talking to her, she was too busy letting their words repeat again and again in her head to understand if his tone meant trouble or not. Luckily for her, Stev stepped out in front of her immediately, which at least made her wake up from her temporary trance. 

“Knock it off, Kyle. Commander will wring your neck if you bother this one. Orders from above.”

The man scoffed before answering.

“Oh, please, I wasn’t going to do anything, who do you take me for? Tighten that leash on her a bit though, Stev, she seems like an airhead and the next one she disturbs might not be this kind,” he said, before making a sweeping gesture with his hand. Move along, you two .

She turned around and marched in the direction of her workshop even before Stev could say or do anything, only stopping when she was in the middle of the yard.

“Miss, are you alright? You were entirely safe, I can assure you,” the soldier said, once he had caught up to her. She didn’t know why, but he sounded almost…concerned, and that almost made her break down again.

“I’m sorry, I just…”

She didn’t even know why she was apologizing to a duvosian soldier, but she decided to just breathe in and ask the only question she cared about at the moment.

“Was it true? What we heard those soldiers say?”

“What we heard…” he started, his tone confused, before the realization of what she meant hit him, “ah! Ah…well, I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk about it.”

She found herself wringing her hands as she spoke again.

“It’s just…Pen…he’s important to me. To know that maybe he was… experimented upon, I…”

She said maybe , but she knew it was the truth. She recalled all the tiny, round scars dotting Pen’s upper body, small and regular like they had been made by the same precise tool over and over…like a very large needle, or any other implement that had repeatedly pierced his flesh. She couldn’t help but remember how uncomfortable he had been whenever she had touched them, how his face had gone ashen for a second or two the first time she had concentrated her attention on those weird little marks, even if in the end she didn’t have the heart to vocalize the question she was thinking. 

What are those scars, Pen?

Now it looked like she had an answer. She suddenly felt dizzy and nauseous, the horror of  what had possibly been inflicted on the man she loved cutting her breath off and making her mind go into overdrive. Stev must have noticed, because she felt his hands firmly grabbing her shoulders and pushing her slowly but decisively towards a crate behind her, not stopping until she was sitting over it.

“Stay here for a moment, Miss. It’s a panic attack, you need to breathe in and out deeply until it’s over.”

He didn’t remove his hands, and it was a good thing he didn’t because it gave her something to concentrate on while she fought to bring her body and mind back under her control, big breaths in and big breaths out. There was little she could do right now, as much as the idea of what had been done to Pen horrified her. She would ask him once she saw again, as delicately as she could, but right now she had to calm down and remain in control.

When she was stable again, a minute or so later, Stev crouched so that his face was at her level, even removing his glasses so she could see his expression and his warm brown eyes.

“About that. I…don’t really know. I’ve heard the rumors, but it’s far above my paygrade anyway. I’m sorry. The only one that can answer is Commander Pen himself, if he’s even allowed to.”

She actually appreciated the honesty: he could have lied to reassure (and manipulate) her, and instead he had gone for the truth, even if it was just a “I don’t know”. Stev sighed, then got back on his feet before asking a question.

“If I may ask…is it true that you will be joining us?”

She really wasn’t, but she had to tread lightly until she knew more.

“I…is that what Pen said?”

Stev nodded.

“He said you were considering it, at least.”

So that was her cover story, uh? If they thought she was considering turning traitor, they would of course treat her better: Pen had really done his part to keep her as safe as possible like he had promised. Now, it was her turn to do her part by playing along.

She was about to answer when she got an idea, however. Her mother had told her many things about Duvos, but it was certainly second-hand knowledge or rumors gathered by working on the border. Pen had told her outright that she didn’t know anything about how Duvos really was and to be honest he probably had a point, so why not use this opportunity for…intelligence gathering? Maybe she’d understand him better this way.

She shrugged before finally speaking again.

“I mean, I would be doing that mostly for him, to…follow him home. But…I’ve heard bad things about life in Duvos.”

Stev offered her a small half smile before shaking his head.

“Oh, Builders are treated very well, Miss. I doubt you’d starve or suffer the cold. And with a Knight as a…partner, if I’m not assuming things wrong and apologies if I am, you’ll be set for life.”

The fact that he had felt the need to reassure that she wouldn’t starve wasn’t really a good start.

“But it is a thing that happens? For people to starve or to suffer the weather?”

Stev was at a loss of words for a second or two before answering again, slightly shaking his head.

“I mean…I think that happens everywhere, Miss. Regrettable, but this is life.”

It was her turn to shake her head.

“Yes, but here in the Alliance is rare. It doesn’t sound like it’s rare the way you tell me.”

He sucked some air in, his expression growing definitely uncomfortable.

“I’m not really supposed…”

Of course, she doubted he was allowed to talk shit about his country, especially with (what he thought was) a potential recruit, so she breathed in and continued.

“I want to know. I looked at Duvos and saw an enemy…but it’s a place , with people with their hopes and dreams. I want to understand .”

She looked at him for a few seconds, hoping that her words had moved him…before realizing something important.

“Oh, what I’m saying. You probably have orders to make me work as much as I can, no time for idle questions.”

Stev cleared his throat, his expression still awkward.

“Well…I’ll be honest, Miss, I’m kinda supposed to try and sway you so you join us. If answering a few questions can help…”

Oh. She raised an eyebrow: had he just admitted that completely unprompted?

“That was surprisingly…open.”

He shrugged before answering.

“I dislike subterfuge.”

That seemed to be the case, but…

“You dislike subterfuge, you dislike causing pain because you admitted that earlier. You don’t exactly seem like a good fit for an operative in a secret mission, in an army.”

Her tone had been neutral…again, she really didn’t wish to antagonize what was for all intents and purposes her jailer, but she also had the feeling that she could push a little with that comment without really angering him. Turns out she was right, because instead of telling her to shut up he scratched his head, his expression slightly awkward.

“Well…I had little opportunities for anything else, to be fair. My…economical situation was not very good, so the military was the only road I had unless I could find an apprenticeship somewhere. I couldn’t, but the military pays well, so I don’t really complain.”

Oh. This had become a rather…personal conversation. She lowered her tone, looking at him in the eyes as she asked him a question, her tone soft.

“Even if it forces you to be something you dislike being?”

No matter how much he tried to minimize casualties, he was still a soldier. Hurting and killing were an inescapable part of his job and, judging by the way his shoulders sagged for an instant, he knew that all too well.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” he said in the end, his tone low and almost…defeated. She immediately felt bad for essentially twisting the knife in the wound, so she moved away her eyes for a moment before asking yet another question with an even softer tone.

“What would you have liked to do? If you could have?”

She could see him hesitate for a moment, then exhale with a small laugh.

“...a tailor. I know, it’s not…manly.”

She would respect a tailor ten times more than a duvosian soldier, to be fair. She scoffed before replying.

“Please. Those disapproving of a man with a needle in hand can go out naked. There’s absolutely nothing shameful about wanting to be a tailor, not anymore than wishing to be a blacksmith or an architect or a Builder.”

She meant it, and Stev looked at her for a few moments, clearly studying her, before answering.

“You are very direct, Miss. But…kind, too. You could do a lot of good back home.”

For a second, she wondered whether maybe, just maybe, she should have accepted Pen’s offer and moved with him to Duvos. Maybe she really could have done some good in a place that desperately needed it. She could have helped build roads, bridges, machines that warded against the cold and the humidity and the dark. She could have brought a little hope in a harsh land.

But then she remembered. Duvos wasn’t just a wasteland, it was rich in mineral resources and relics: if they had wanted, they could have asked for help from the Alliance, set up trade routes for food and exchanges of culture and science. They wouldn’t have taken over Baja and Mobius and Arcadia, they wouldn’t have tried to take Lucien (and then the rest of the Alliance) by force. They wouldn’t have been a place that had given her mother nightmares for years, they wouldn’t have taken a man, maybe even just a boy, and experimented and twisted him like he was one of the animals they used in the labs of the Old World.

As much as her heart wept for good people like Stev, who seemed so kind and yet had such a hard life, as much as her heart wept for people like her Pen, she really couldn’t fix a nation that didn’t want to be fixed, and trying anyway would be extremely foolish.

She shrugged before offering the soldier in front of her a smile, her mask firmly back in place.

“Thank you, and I really hope so. Is there anything else you can tell me about Duvos?”

She had finished her conversation with Stev and had started to work on the damn bathtub a couple of hours before, and she had been busy shaping up a block of granite when a loud neigh had resounded in the air. Her horse was inside the stables on the other side of the yard, no point guessing who had made that sound…but, what was happening?

Stev, currently busy sipping from a water bottle she had handed him when he had almost collapsed under the harsh sunlight, immediately went into high alert.

“Miss? What was that?”

Well, how should she know? She wasn’t omniscient! 

…however, she had this feeling in her chest, this feeling she really couldn’t explain that said that everything was going to be fine. Apricot, her horse, neighed that way when she was surprised, it was too subdued to be a real call for help. More like she was…just startled. Like something had appeared in front of her, and she had cried out before recognizing she wasn’t in danger…like she had been greeted by a familiar sight after a first moment of panic.

Her heart skipped a beat, hope swelling inside her, but she forced herself to stay calm and to shrug, trying to lie with the straightest face she could.

“I…don’t know? I hope it’s not some kind of animal that’s entered my stables and is trying to eat my horse. Again.”

Stev very visibly sighed, before putting down the bottle and unsheathing the sword he carried.

“I’ll go check.”

She waited for him to move halfway towards the other end of the yard before she followed him. The stables were an open edifice, so it was clear that nothing was there other than Apricot, but next to it she had built a (quite big) wooden shed for both her horse’s food and some tools she did not want to leave laying around. Now, the door to that storage was slightly open.

Alyx shook her head, thinking as fast as she could.

“Those damn lizards. The door sometimes doesn’t close well, and when it doesn’t they enter to go eat Apricot’s feeding. Could I ask you to deal with it? I would do it myself, but without my weapons...”

Stev gave one look at the door, one look at her, sighed again and then opened the door completely and entered. He moved a few steps inside, stopped, then started to give a look around.

“Well, I don’t see any lizard right n-”

That was, of course, the exact instant Pen leaned out from the shelf he had hidden behind, grabbed Stev by the arm and pushed him violently against the far wall of the shed, the sword clanking on the ground as the soldier lost his grip on it.

He was there, he was there and he loved her and he was there to save her!

Alyx found herself running inside, hastily closing the door behind her as the Knight firmly grabbed the smaller soldier by the throat with one single hand, pinning him against the wall. He then slightly bent forward, speaking out slowly and with a low tone that dripped menace next to Stev’s face.

“Not a single sound, or I’ll crush your windpipe before you can finish shouting the first word.”

Judging by the look on his face, he would not hesitate a second to do it…and, as much as she was overjoyed to see Pen (even said joy was a bit marred by a twang of worry as she remembered the… experiments talk), and how much it was amazing to know that he hadn’t changed his mind about helping them after all, she really didn’t want to see Stev harmed if they could have avoided it.

“Pen!”

He turned towards her, his grip on Stev's throat unchanged, before offering her a luminous smile that made his eyes sparkle.

“Skinny! You’re alright, aren’t you? Hah, of course you are!”

Again, it's not like she wasn’t flattered seeing his obvious joy to see her unharmed, but poor Stev was kinda starting to become purple and she felt she had to do something about it.

“Pen, don’t crush his windpipe, Light!” she hissed, hoping to communicate the sense of urgency she was feeling without actually shouting. Pen's smile immediately dropped in response as he offered her a rather hurt look and…wait, was that a slight pout?

“Skinny, that was not the hero’s welcome I was expecting.”

She really, really didn’t want to deal with Pen’s ego right now, he could have his “hero's welcome” later! Alyx briefly, but frantically, gestured in the direction of the poor man in Pen's grasp.

“He has done nothing wrong!”

Pen scoffed.

“He’s in the way . I didn’t see you being this worried about human life when you wanted to skewer Matilda.”

Okay, this was a low blow. She put her hands on her hips, giving him her best “oh no you didn’t” look.

“Matilda is a traitorous hag.”

She didn’t miss the way his lips briefly turned upwards for a moment, like they always did when he tried to suppress a smile (or a smirk), before he shrugged.

“Eh, good point, but still. Look, no one’s going to miss him, I can smell an orphan from miles away.”

And with that, he turned back towards the poor soldier he had pinned to the wall, his expression betraying a certain degree of annoyance.

“Hey, pipsqueak, when did your family die? Twenty years ago? Fifteen?”

Mercifully he also relaxed his grip on Stev's throat, which allowed the poor man to talk (and breathe) again.

“Twen-twenty three. Sir.”

Oh . He hadn't mentioned that before, but...of course he hadn't, it was clearly a sensitive, personal and very, very painful matter. Alyx found herself asking a question almost before realizing she wanted to do so.

“Wait. But you have at least someone waiting for you at home, right?”

Stev only barely shook his head.

“I…military life does not leave much time for anything else, Miss.”

Pen turned back to her, a self satisfied smile on his face…but Alyx ignored him as she started thinking. Stev had… no one ? No friends, no family, only a dull life that often risked to be cut short had anything gone wrong on a battlefield.

This wasn’t fair.

“See? No one is-”

“Then join us.”

She and Pen had spoken almost at the same time, which made the latter blink as he realized that he had just been cut off mid sentence.

“What-”

She didn’t wait for him to finish his protests, instead concentrating entirely on Stev as she continued.

“I understand what I’m asking you right now, betraying your country isn’t something easy to decide. And no,” she paused to shoot a pointed glance in Pen’s direction before returning her attention to Stev, “no one is going to snap your neck if you refuse, we’ll only knock you out.”

She breathed in, feeling the attention of both men in front of her as she tried to find the words she was searching for.

You could save him. Don’t screw up now.

“But…you sounded pretty unhappy about your life, when we talked before. If you help us retake the city, you’d be a hero, and I’m sure the Alliance would see no issue with you joining us. And...you have my word I will personally vouch for you if they don't. If you were to remain here in Sandrock…our tailor’s getting pretty old, she would be overjoyed to have an apprentice when this is all over.”

Well, all of that, and there was also another very important matter. She allowed herself a smirk.

“Also…it’s a Knight and me and an entire town against a handful of soldiers, you are going to lose. No question about that.”

There was silence after that, a heavy silence that no one, not even Pen, dared to break as Stev lowered his head (as much as the grip on his neck allowed him to, anyway). He was lost in his thoughts for a minute that seemed to stretch forever, but then he sharply inhaled and Alyx knew that she was getting an answer, one way or another. He moved back his gaze, covered again by his reflective goggles, on her face.

“I will. I will join you.”

Her eyes widened, for a moment not daring to believe what she had heard. It was only when Stev offered her a rather shy grin that she understood that yes , he had really meant it. She smiled back at him, but before she could say anything else Pen very audibly scoffed, (finally) let go Stev’s neck and moved a few decisive steps in her direction.

“Yeah, all fine and good, fantastic, we’re all very happy. Skinny, come with me!”

He grabbed her wrist immediately after finishing his phrase, his grip like steel (even if not tight enough to cause her pain), then unceremoniously dragged her out of the shed. He only stopped when they were behind her home, under the shadow of the water tank. 

He let her wrist go as he turned to face her, then he hissed: “What was that?! Are you going to ask every soldier you meet to turn traitor now? That’s not how it works!”

Frankly, she had no idea what had him so worked up. She put her hands on her hips as she smiled in a rather impish way, hoping that a joke would dispel the tension in the air.

“So far, it has worked like a charm. One hundred percent success rate, even.”

The way his expression darkened even more told her that it was apparently a serious matter and that she had grossly underestimated how irritated he was by it. She sighed before raising her hands, conceding defeat.

“Pen, I was joking. It’s just…he sounded like a good person. He was nice to me, even if I was a prisoner. Why not give him the possibility of a new life here? And besides, making allies doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me.”

She knew her argument had been sound, so she wasn’t surprised when Pen groaned after a few seconds of silence, rolling his eyes in a way that suggested he was forfeiting this round.

“Okay, okay, don’t give me that look, pipsqueak’s on the team, fine. But we’re not recruiting anyone else!”

Despite his words, however, something was clearly still eating away at him…but what?

“I wasn’t planning to, it’s not like… wait.” 

It was with a sudden moment of clarity that she finally understood what was happening. She couldn’t help but to slightly open her mouth in surprise.

“Pen? Are you jealous?”

To her the mere idea that Pen, after all they had shared together, could feel threatened by a guy she had literally known for a few hours was absolutely ridiculous. And yet, judging by the way he immediately crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked away in the distance, in a way that was very deliberately avoiding to even just glance her way, well…it looked like she had been right on the money.

“No.”

Really convincing, Pen. She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Pen…”

He pursed his lips for a second or two, then his shoulders slightly slumped as he answered.

“Okay, maybe a little. I know, I know, you wouldn’t, I’m not stupid. I don’t doubt for a second that the only thing that you feel towards the bravest little soldier back there is pity mixed with vague sympathy.”

Now, she really wasn’t sure about the “pity” part, but she had been with Pen long enough to know what battles to pick and what to let slide, and this was definitely the latter. She moved one step towards him, raising one hand to caress his jaw once she was near enough. Gently, she turned his head so that he would face her; he could have resisted, but instead allowed her light touch to move him.

“Pen. Are you afraid that you are not special to me? That if you’re not special I’ll turn on you, like you said before?”

He leaned into her hand for a moment but then he pulled away, to her immense disappointment.

“This is not really the time for this, Skinny. I thought you wanted to save this town? Well, to do that we need to go before someone sees us and starts to wonder what Commander Pen is doing out here talking with a prisoner. ”

For a man that had fooled an entire town for years, that was a surprisingly coarse attempt to change the topic…but, well, he had a point. She could have another chat with him when Sandrock had been freed...and she fully intended to do so.

She nodded, at which Pen sighed before turning away from her.

“Let’s go back inside the shed. We need a plan, and I suppose we’ll need to let Pipsqueak into it.”

Chapter Text

It was an evening like many others, nothing really special. He was done with his patrol for the day, any business up the Temple had been resolved and no nuisance had popped out of nowhere. So, like he did most days, Pen was descending the stairs towards Martle Square, not a care in the world, when he heard the sounds of voices further down. Now, he personally couldn’t care less, but his training kicked him and forced him to at least try and pay attention: you never know when a snippet of conversation could be a hint valuable for the mission or a signal that his position could be compromised.

“So, how about I offer you dinner one of these times?”

Oh, well, this time it was nothing useful. He rolled his eyes and was about to continue minding his own business when a second voice immediately caught his attention.

“Dinner? Is this an offer in the spirit of friendship, or…?”

…Skinny?! Nevermind anything he had just said until this moment, this was clearly a matter worthy of his full attention. He found himself tightening his hands into fists, but he did not move even as anger started to boil inside him. He hadn’t exactly recognized the other voice, so it was either a tourist (unlikely) or some new face around, and those were rare indeed. But didn’t that Ataran journalist that had moved in recently live in the apartments below his current position? Anyway, he tried to breathe in and relax, maybe this situation wasn’t going in any direction he would not -

“Well, I was kinda hoping it would be…more. If you are okay with that, of course, and no hard feelings if you don’t.”

…fuck that, he was going to crack a skull. He marched down the stairs, fury boiling inside him even as he heard Skinny answer back.

“Oh. Ernest, I’m sorry, but I’m already seeing someone.”

He came into view of them (yes, they were just outside the apartments, the door still open)  just as the blonde idiot started to stammer some pathetic excuse. 

“Ah! I apologize then, I hadn’t realized! I didn’t mean to…”

Skinny’s eyes snapped up to him as he strode towards them, but the journalist was turning his back to the stairs and didn’t notice him until Pen roughly clasped his shoulder, fury blazing as bright and hot as the sun inside him and barely held back by years of training.

“You didn’t mean it, you say? Yeah, you’d better not. Scamper along now, before you piss me off .”

With only the hand he had on his shoulder, he shoved the man towards the door of the apartments, away from her , and looked on, with no small amount of satisfaction, as he retreated into the building and closed the door. His rage was just starting to simmer down when Skinny moved to plant herself in front of him, arms crossed.

“Pen, what the hell was that?”

She sounded…irritated. Why was she irritated, he had only done what any man would do! He found himself gritting his teeth.

“Putting a wretch back to his place.”

He instantly saw her expression darken, but he didn’t care; he wasn’t blaming her, he was just pissed with that blond prick, so she could stuff that rage back where it came from. He crossed his arms just as she answered.

“Don’t try that with me. You heard him apologize, he clearly had no idea. There was no need to threaten him.”

Was she…defending that other guy? He could not fucking believe this. He sneered, narrowing his eyes.

“What? So should I stay there and smile when another man flirts with my girlfriend?”

That was the moment where she leaned forward, poking him in the chest with one finger (had it been anyone else, he would have ripped them apart) as she continued, her tone now icy.

“I am not a piece of meat you can fight over, is that clear?”

That snapped him out of it. He blinked twice…piece of meat?! What did…was she implying that he thought she couldn’t defend herself from advances? Or…that she was just some kind of object? He found himself shaking his head.

“This- of course you’re not a piece of meat! But-” he stammered, but she cut him off before he could finish.

“But what? Do you trust me, or not? And don’t give me the usual crap about ‘it’s not you, it’s them!’. I am perfectly capable and willing to say no, because I am not interested.”

He found himself struggling to come up with a retort for that, but instead of words he felt rage bubbling up again. What were they even arguing about?! Of course he trusted her! Why was she making such a fuss about this?!

He was silent for a few seconds, at which she scoffed.

“Oh, whatever. Just stay here and stew on it, I don’t care.”

She instantly turned and marched away from him…and Pen, despite his first reaction being reaching out for her, let her go.

Alyx breathed in and out slowly, hidden in the shadow of the nearest alley next to the plaza. She gripped her knives tightly as she kept an eye out on her surroundings and then, as soon as she was sure nobody was around to spot her, she slightly leaned forward to get a better look at Main square and at the scene happening there. 

Their best strategy was, all things considered, to use the element of surprise as much as they could before the soldiers could find out what was going on. After all, two of their group could move through the town without raising a single eyebrow…or, well, Stev could. Pen would get a bit of attention on him, but it was still nothing compared to the hornets’ nest her walking around would kick.

Anyway, Stev had said some civilians were held up in the Apartments, Owen and a few others were stuck in the Blue Moon and of course there was the small group imprisoned in jail. However there was a quite big problem: the biggest group was held up in the Temple, right next to where the Commander had set up base. So, they needed to strike hard and fast, securing the lower town before the alarm could reach Lefu.

Most of the soldiers had been transferred back to the Ruins, which was positive but it wasn’t enough. In order to secure the town, the pivotal control point of Martle Square (and the Air cannon she had built) had to return back to their control…which was far easier to say than to do, because a small group of soldiers always guarded it.

However, they had a plan.

She watched as Pen moved towards the group of soldiers next to the cannon, and how they immediately snapped in salute as soon as he stopped in front of them. Unluckily for them all, however, soldiers weren’t the only ones around the machine.

Yan laughed (probably the most unpleasant laugh she had ever heard), before moving towards Pen. Damn it, Pen had the authority to move the soldiers, but not Yan. Of course, the ex-commissioner was probably a complete pushover in a fight, but she had seen firsthand just how fast the slimy weasel could run: if they failed to stop him he would give the alarm faster than you could say “you embezzled all the money you owed us”.

“Pen! Old pal! I-”

Pen didn’t waste any time grabbing him by the collar, keeping him suspended midair as he growled in the other man’s face, “Pal? Listen to me very, very well. You are lucky you are useful, or I would have snapped your spine a long, long time ago.”

He let his hand open, making Yan fall butt-first over the ground.

“Now spare me your presence and return to that hole you call a Commerce Guild to do your damn job before I get really irritated.”

Well, turns out she had underestimated Pen and his intimidation skills, because Yan was darting down Main Street not even a few seconds later, fast enough she didn’t even manage to retreat from the corner of the alley before he passed her position and went forward. He didn’t seem to have noticed her, however, so when he had disappeared into the Commerce Guild she returned her attention to the plaza in front of her.

“So, bring chains. We’re dragging that damn bandit here once and for all once I’m done with giving him the thrashing he deserves.”

The plan was for Pen, who had used Logan as an excuse to return, to drag away the group guarding the cannon out of the city using the same pretext, neutralize them (she kinda hoped as non-lethally as possible) and then return to help the liberation efforts. In the meanwhile, she would free the jail and Stev (who, again, could move undetected) would free the Blue Moon first, then the Apartments. Once they had done so, they would leave someone to hold Martle Square and bring the strongest fighters to liberate the Temple.

“But…Sir, Commander Lefu ordered us…” one of the soldiers started to protest, but Pen brusquely turning to glare at him was enough to make him trail off.

“Oh? I wasn’t aware Lefu now outranked me, soldier.”

Again, the raw menace in his tone made Alyx’s skin crawl via second-hand intimidation, but it was effective enough to make the soldier snap to attention.

“Sir! I apologize, Sir!”

She found herself releasing a breath she didn’t know she had held as Pen nodded, then turned around and started to walk away from the square.

“Good. I will clear that later with your Commander, now move your asses and follow me!”

She waited for them to leave and only when Martle Square was completely empty she dared to dart away from her hiding place, skirting close to the shadows of the early evening in order to reach the Civil Corps’ base.

Stev should have already reached the Blue Moon by now; he didn’t have to hide like she did, so of course he would reach his destination faster. Now, it was time for her to do her part as well. She breathed in, readied her knives and then pushed the door as little as she could, slipping inside the building and immediately diving behind Justice’s desk (which was, very luckily, just next to the entrance).

She didn’t bother closing the door: during the hellish days before the attack someone had managed to damage the closing mechanism, and now it sometimes opened on its own, especially on windy days. With every Builder too busy to repair it, it had stayed broken…and now it worked in her favor. 

Of course, one of the two guards in front of the cell immediately noticed the small change, as she heard a loud groan (she didn’t dare to look, of course, because to do so she had to raise her head out from her hiding place).

“Goddammit. The door opened again. And I think I saw something move, I hope it’s not the damn cat. Again.”

“Well, it’s your turn this time. I already went to check twice in a row!”

Her breath caught in her throat, but she forced herself to stay calm: they believed she was Captain, and if she could stay hidden enough she could spring an ambush. She prepared herself, shifting her body in a more appropriate position in order to pounce at the right moment.

“Fine, fine, I’ll go. Asshole.”

She gripped her knives tighter as she felt the sounds of footsteps descending the stairs, walking closer, closer…

“I don’t see that c-”

She jumped forward, punching the soldier right in the face with her right fist, then following with a quick pommel strike to the head. The man crumbled to the ground, unconscious, as the other guard shouted, clearly not expecting that. She turned, as quickly as she could, but there was a ramp of stairs between her and the soldier: he would sound the alarm before she could reach him. She couldn’t…

That was the exact moment two pairs of hands grabbed the soldier by the arms from behind and pulled him violently against the bars with a loud clang.

She was already running up the stairs as the soldier tried to struggle against Unsuur and Justice’s grasp, and soon the pommel of her knife had found its mark again, making the guard crumble down like his colleague had done. She breathed in and out for a second, trying to listen and see if more guards were coming, but no, it seemed like these two were the only ones there. Made sense, if only a few soldiers had remained in the city, but it wasn’t important right now.

“Alyx! Thank goodness, yer alright! When they brought ya away…well, we got mighty scared!”

She took a moment to smile at Justice and at Unsuur (and desperately trying to avoid Cooper’s gaze, fearing one of his infamous rants) before speaking again.

“I am fine! But we don’t have much time…I’ll take the keys to the cell, then I will free you.”

Neither Justice nor Unsuur answered that.

“The one that went downstairs had them.”

She turned her head slightly to look at Miguel, but the man didn’t meet her gaze.

“I will not hinder you, nor attempt to escape. Go.”

She didn’t know what he was planning, or even if he was planning something at all, but right now she couldn’t afford to care. She darted down the stairs, freed the keys from the guy’s belt and then darted back up, unlocking the cell after fidgeting for a moment with the keys to find the correct one.

The occupants of the cell (except Miguel, who kept his word of not even trying to move) had just filed out and had started to arm themselves when the door leading outside was opened violently, followed by a tall figure entering.

She recognized him immediately, of course, and a big smile appeared on her lips before she could stop herself.

“Pen! You made it. Are those soldiers…?”

She started to descend the stairs as he grinned back, self-satisfaction evident in his expression.

“Neutralized? Yes. I even took my time to knock them out instead of snapping their necks, like you asked. You’re welcome, you can repay me with extra kisses later.”

The jail trio followed her down after an instant of hesitation, but Justice didn’t stop behind her like the others. Instead, he walked forward, passing Alyx and planting himself in front of Pen, uncomfortably close and glaring at him for a moment.

“So. Seems like you really went rogue. Can’t say I expected this.”

It was a tense moment, and she didn’t dare to interrupt. Pen held up the Sheriff’s gaze, his expression now stony.

“Yes, it would seem like that indeed.”

Justice clicked his tongue before speaking again.

“I see. Pen? This is for betrayin’ us.”

Before she had the time to register his words (and their meaning), Justice had planted a punch right into Pen’s guts, just below the breastplate he wore. Pen huffed out all the air he had in his body, briefly bending forward as his expression filled with disbelief…and pain. Before anything else could happen, however, Justice extended the same hand he had used to punch Pen towards him.

“With that bein’ said…glad to have ya back on our side.”

Pen looked at the hand for a few seconds, then at the Sheriff himself before straightening his back again, a smirk appearing on his lips. 

“Yeah, I guess I deserved that.”

He clasped the Sheriff’s hand, briefly shaking it for a second or two to Alyx’s immense relief. Pen then shook his head for a moment, before turning again towards her.

“So far, so good, but we still need to free the Temple, and that’s the most complicated part.”

Right, no time to lose.

Cooper stayed inside the jail, taking care of throwing into the cell the two unconscious guards, and Unsuur and Justice decided to remain to hold Martle Square (“Y’all can probably handle the Temple alone, but if we lose this control point again we’re screwed”)...all according to plan.

She and Pen were already reaching the stairs leading up to their final destination when a loud siren sound resonated in the air: an alarm. Damn, she realized after an instant of panic, someone had sounded the alarm!

She exchanged a worried look with Pen for a moment and then they were sprinting up the stairs, as fast as they could.

She could only hope they were still in time to save everyone.

Lefu gritted his teeth, resisting the urge to just punch the little bootlicker in front of him. As much as the thought displeased him, the weasel had just proved himself useful by delivering important information, and he suddenly had bigger problems to face.

“Are you sure?”

“Well, Sir, I was working in my office, for the glory of Duvos of course! And, and…I noticed movement in the Blue Moon! So I went to check, and…well, the owner and the people there were free, without supervision! And I thought I had seen someone lurking around when I had returned to my office, so I ran as fast as I could to warn you!”

What a stupidly roundabout way to say that someone was freeing the town, but of course Lefu was already busy elaborating a counter strategy. He sprung to his feet, completely ignoring the useless individual in front of him to run, hitting the alarm button in Tiger’s home office as he exited. It had probably intended to be a warning sign for Sandrock’s population, as it was connected to the Temple’s loudspeaker system; maybe it was meant to tell them to get indoors before a particularly nasty sandstorm. He had drilled his men, however, to respond to that sound differently.

Converge to the Temple. Defend our position there.

He ran into the Temple as he hastily loaded his gun: he had no idea of how much time he had, but he had to assume the worst. But, guess what? He had a pretty good idea for an appropriate reaction.

Freeing the Blue Moon had been easier than expected, so now Stev walked towards his next destination, the Sandrock Apartments. As expected, no one paid attention to him, so he reached the place fairly quickly. He breathed in, put his hand on the door and pushed, entering the building and giving himself a moment to look around.

He immediately spotted the two civilians sitting on the atrium’s armchairs, a blonde woman and a chubby man with a bright yellow jacket…and, unfortunately, the soldier in front of them. The latter turned brusquely, alarmed, but immediately relaxed once he realized who had just entered. He raised one eyebrow, a smirk appearing on his lips.

“Oi, Stev, you got out of playing babysitter?”

With a different tone, those words could have been a jest between fellow soldiers, but Stev had to resist the urge to grit his teeth at the barely held back mockery in the other man's tone. 

Stev had been dealt shitty hand after shitty hand in his life, but he had tried to not give up and find a place for himself anyway. He had survived training, had become an excellent marksman and generally a good enough soldier that Commander Lefu had even chosen him to be his personal assistant: a better (and better paid) position than the one he had as a simple soldier. But know what he had received in return? Indifference at best, mocking in every other case (“Look! Here comes the Commander’s little bitch”). He hadn’t asked for that position, he hadn’t licked boots like many others had tried to do when it had opened, but in the end he had still received scorn for one of the few things that had gone right in his life.

Maybe that’s why he had accepted to help Miss Alyx. She had a Knight to her side (apparently; he was still trying to wrap his head around Commander Pen betraying Duvos), and she still had felt the need to try and recruit him. She had tried to recruit him despite not particularly needing his help, despite the risk that he’d agree only so he could save his skin and report to Commander Lefu what was going on at the first occasion, because she wanted him to have a chance at a happy life. Him, an enemy soldier she had every reason to hate at worst, and a nobody she had just met at best.

Well. Duvos could fuck right off if you asked him: he had given them everything he had and was and he had received only slaps in the face for it. Well, they didn’t deserve his loyalty anymore, not when he had a better alternative.

Still, it was not the time for that. He shrugged, pretending to ignore the barbs as usual.

“Yeah. Now the Commander wants me to get a brief report on all the residents. No problems, I trust?”

He needed an occasion, a way to lower the other soldier’s attention enough for a quick and decisive strike: even if he could come on top in the end, there was always the possibility of a fight attracting attention and then the alarm to be given. No, he would do what he had done in the Blue Moon, it was far less risky. He only needed this…asshole to lower his guard for a moment.

Said asshole shrugged, turning for a split second (too fast, dammit!) to look at the two people behind him before returning his attention to Stev.

“Yeah, yeah. They’re civilians, just how much trouble can they cause? I don’t think there’s much to say about it.”

The conversation was kinda dying down, but the soldier kept staring at him…dammit. Stev had kinda hoped that he would turn to look at his charges again, but no, he had to concentrate on him! Well, he could not leave now, so his only option was to desperately keep talking and hope for the best.

“Hm. You look tired, though.”

Okay, the other soldier was now clearly starting to get irritated, probably wondering why Stev wasn’t just leaving him alone. He turned even more towards him, a frown clearly visible even under his visor. Stev’s hand hovered next to the hilt of his short sword… come on, a distraction, he needed just a distraction!

“More like bored, and I still have an hour before I can-”

Two things happened almost immediately: the blonde woman abruptly raised from the armchair and the soldier turned brusquely to look at her, presumably to shout at her to sit back or to make her. Stev didn’t waste any time: he quickly extracted his shortsword, then promptly hit the other man right behind his head with a powerful blow to the head with the hilt. He could have killed him, but…well. He really disliked causing pain.

He had a second to watch the other soldier crumble to the ground and was already about to breathe out in relief when the woman dived forward, extracted the weapon the soldier was carrying on his hip (another shortsword) and promptly pointed it at him.

What?! Stev found himself moving one step backwards, raising his hands.

“Wait wait wait! I’m on your side!”

He saw in his peripheral vision the chubby man getting up from the armchair, but his attention was entirely on the woman pointing a weapon at him, especially after she scoffed.

“Oh, and why would we believe you, duvosian?”

He cleared his throat, before pointing at the unconscious man just under her.

“Because I...just knocked out your guard?”

The woman did not seem very convinced, but at least she lowered her weapon.

“And what if this is part of a bigger trap?”

…Okay, he guessed that, in such a situation, a bit of suspicion was justified. These people were surely scared, an explanation was the least he could offer. He breathed in as the chubby man walked behind the blonde woman, before speaking again.

“We are freeing this town as we speak. Miss Alyx and…”

He stopped abruptly as he realized something. “Miss Alyx and Commander Pen”, he wanted to say, but he doubted these people would be more willing to believe him had he mentioned it. In fact, they would probably turn on him outright! I mean, it was understandable they would never believe that a person they had trusted before their, probably painful, betrayal was, somehow, helping them again.

Still, the blonde woman put her hands on her hips (still keeping the shortsword in one of them), tapping her foot.

“...and?”

Well, he had stopped rather suddenly. He cleared his throat as he continued, hoping to avoid the worst part of the truth and going in a more palatable direction.

“Uhm. She and another person are freeing the combatants in the Sandrock jail. Once the lower town has been freed, we’ll sweep towards the Temple. Any assistance you can give is appreciated, but if you do not have combat training I’d try to just lay low for now.”

Of course, that didn’t work.

“Another person? Logan?”

…okay, he was screwed, but it’s not like he could avoid this forever if she kept pushing. He breathed in, crossed his mental fingers and spoke again.

“...uhm. Well…no. It’s…Commander Pen.”

There was an instant of stunned silence, and then the yellow-jacketed man emitted a delighted thrill. Wait, what…

“I knew it! I knew there was some Light in him! I couldn’t believe he would betray us like that!”

Uh.

…well, at least no one was trying to attack him, he counted this as a win. He blinked a few times, then he moved his eyes back on the woman and found her smirking.

“Well, Mr. Duvosian, thank you for cooperating and telling us everything.”

She looked…calm. In control. It didn’t take much for Stev to add two and two together.

“You…believed me from the beginning. You just used me to gain information.”

She shrugged, a playful smirk tugging her lips upwards for a second or two.

“Sorry, not sorry."

Any other answer had to wait, however, as a loud siren sound resounded in the air. Stev felt the blood drain from his face as he immediately understood what was going on.

“The alarm…I need to reach the Temple. Now.”

He was already turning when he heard the woman loudly clear her throat. Stev moved his head to look at her, just in time to see her extract a small caliber gun from under her red jacket and immediately offer that to him.

“Take this.”

He was about to question why that woman had a weapon on her when they had made sure all Sandrockers were disarmed once they had secured the city…and a gun of all things! But, he decided against it: time was not on his side. He just took the gun, nodded in her direction, then exited the building and started to run up the stairs.

Logan waited, hidden in the shadow of a rock formation overlooking Sandrock, with this awful sensation crawling on his back and down his spine that told him something wrong was about to happen…or was happening. No, he told himself, he had to stay calm, think clearly and not listen to these sensations, not until…

“Logan! Mon ami! Psst!”

He jumped out of his skin as the voice interrupted his thoughts, but he recovered quickly once he saw the short shape of the mole-man, Ged, he had asked to go and check on Sandrock. He allowed himself a smile as he addressed him.

“Ged! Finally, these dogs were relentlessly hunting me, I don’t think they fell for my bluff.”

Logan had thought he had been clever, leaving traces going towards the Northern Ruins to mask his intentions to find a way to free Sandrock first…but apparently, these duvosians were smarter than he had expected. He had to dodge patrol after patrol, almost like they knew he was still around, so his only option to know what was going on in the occupied city had been to send Ged and his fellow moles.

“There’s a lot of movement in town now, Logan!”

Suddenly, that vague sense of foreboding didn’t seem that illogical anymore. He frowned, looking at Ged as he panted; had he run (...excavated really quickly?) all the way from Sandrock to reach him? Was the situation so dire?

“What kind of movement?”

Ged took another long breath in before answering.

“First, the big fighter you were worried about returned.” 

A cold shiver ran down his back…Pen. Not a good sign, and why the hell had he returned? Logan was sure he had departed for the Northern Plateau Ruins…could it be that he had returned to hunt him in particular, instead? No, he would have noticed a huge Knight wandering the desert. But…if not that, then what?

Ah, no sense overthinking this. He shook his head as Ged continued.

“Then, my friends noticed people from Sandrock were going around, armed and free. And there’s some kind of showdown building at the Temple!”

Logan had no idea what was going on, but he did know two things: Sandrock needed his help, and it needed it fast . He readied his revolver, then nodded quickly in the direction of his friend.

“I need to go, right now! Thank you, Ged!”

He whistled, moving from his hiding place to run towards Rambo,who had just appeared in the distance and was approaching him at top speed once he had been called.

No time to lose.

Pen ran like the wind up the staircase to the Temple, cursing internally because of course things had to go to hell at the worst possible moment. Alyx was running in front of him, fear putting wings on her feet, but he managed to not lag too much behind despite her immense speed.

They reached the plaza where the Temple overlooked the city almost together, just to see a handful of soldiers running towards the big building. He saw Alyx abruptly stop first, and only understood a second later the reason she had done that: Lefu, who had clearly just exited from the Temple, was holding both a gun and Mayor Trudy in a chokehold.

Fuck.

The Commander wasn’t wearing his face concealing helmet, so Pen could clearly see his eyes scanning them and stopping on him. He immediately freezed, his eyes widening (but, sadly, the grip on both his weapon and his hostage didn’t waver).

“...what in the name of-"

For a second he wondered if he could pretend he was chasing a fugitive prisoner or something, anything to get Lefu’s guard down…but no. Not even he could lie in the face of such an obvious truth.

He squared his shoulders, the Hands whirring to life against his palm as Lefu’s expression distorted in rage.

“You fucking traitor. How dare you turn on the Empire?! All you are, you-”

That was a monologue that could go on for hours and, frankly, Pen had no intention to listen to it. He scoffed loudly, as he went to cut off the officer before he could give Cooper a run for his money in the useless chatter department.

“Blah, blah. Spare the lecture for someone who cares. Give up, Lefu, and maybe I’ll allow you to return to that shithole of a country we call home with both your legs still attached.”

Lefu narrowed his eyes at him, shoving the gun into Trudy’s temple. Now, he was fairly sure one more death on his hands wouldn’t make such a difference, but Skinny would have never let him hear the end of it had he watched as Trudy was shot…and, well, he needed all the benevolence he could if he was to switch sides after all he had done.

So, he did what he always did when he was in trouble: he lied.

“Please, do you really think I care if she lives or dies? In fact, shoot her. I’ll have an even better line of sight to get at you once she’s out of the way.”

He could almost see Skinny tense next to him, but he refused to move his eyes away from Lefu to look. He could not afford to show weakness, not even if it was just a glance her way.

Don’t call my bluff, babe. Don’t say anything, let me handle this!

There was a moment of stillness that seemed to stretch forever, no one moving even as more soldiers and a good number of armed Sandrockers reached the terrace.

Then, Lefu laughed curtly.

“...hah. It’s true what they say. Such an exceptional liar. You didn’t even flinch, one might think you were telling the truth.”

Damn it! Lefu smirked, bending forward and pressing the gun even more into Trudy's head as she let out a yelp.

“Normally, you might not care about a single person’s life, true. But…I wonder if the rest of this quaint little town will forgive you if you let their beloved Mayor die. I mean, you just threw away everything to side with them, even if it was such a stupid move...you must care, in some way.”

…he was smarter than expected, damn. Pen found himself gritting his teeth as he extended one arm towards Lefu, the Hand already charging. All or nothing.

“Do you really think you can survive a fight with me, Lefu? This is your last chance to quit,” he growled, but the answer was once again a curt laugh.

“Hm, I suppose not. But I will have the satisfaction of knowing I ruined your victory even before they send in the Lion Knight to put you down like the beast you are.”

A cold shiver ran through his spine, and not only because of the threat of a deadly assassin being sent after him: the situation was getting out of hand and he needed a distraction, fast! He refused to let Lefu win this, dammit! He just needed to…

BANG.

Suddenly, Lefu was howling in pain, holding his shoulder as Trudy (wisely) scrambled away from him after planting an elbow in his guts. He turned around for an instant, recognizing the figure of Pipsqueak (a few paces away from them) with a still steaming gun in hand. 

Oh, right, he had forgotten about his existence. Uh, who knew he could be useful, after all?

Meanwhile, Alyx had already launched herself forward, planting one hell of a punch right on Lefu's nose…hah! That was his Skinny, he couldn’t help but think with satisfaction and quite a bit of pride as the Commander flew backwards to violently hit the Temple's doors, crumbling down immediately after.

Hah! So much for “ruining his victory”! He puffed out his chest, a big grin spreading on his face.

“My job here is done!”

Skinny immediately turned her head to look at him in disbelief.

“Wha- you didn’t do shit, Pen!”

Any retort he was going to make was interrupted as he noticed one of the soldiers, the one nearest to Alyx, extracting his sword from the sheath on his hip. She noticed as well, dropping into a combat stance and readying her knives, but he had a better idea. He growled, extending again his palm as the Hands whirred to charge a beam.

“Don’t you fucking dare move. Drop that weapon, and that also goes for the rest of you!” he shouted with his best commanding tone. The soldiers were confused and probably scared, so most of them immediately complied.

He was about to relax and drop his arm, thanking Lady Luck for her support, when he heard an irritatingly familiar voice shout from his side,  even if in the heat of the moment he couldn’t quite place it.

“Alyx!”

He saw in his peripheral vision a fast movement, a flash of brown and black and silver, a glint of metal, but he wasn’t fast enough to turn completely before-

BANG.

A sharp, burning pain erupted in his abdomen, and for a second his breath was cut off despite all his pain tolerance training. He moved instinctively one hand to touch the point where the pain was radiating from; his palm and fingers came out stained in blood, clear even over the red of the Hands.

“...well, shit.”

Chapter Text

It was not in Pen's nature to admit defeat concerning an argument where he was pretty sure he was in the right, so he spent what remained of the evening after his discussion with Alyx steaming. Night, however, brought a series of doubts: Skinny was usually pretty reasonable, so why had she reacted so strongly this time? 

He didn't think he had done anything wrong…but, on the other hand, he had very little experience concerning romantic relationships. Sex, yes, he'd had a lot, but actual (sorta) long-term relationships? He was a novice, and maybe he had unknowingly committed a blunder. Or...well, maybe it didn't really matter if he had or not, Alyx had been very upset either way: it was probably his duty as her boyfriend to try and avoid that. It didn't matter how doomed their relationship was, as long as they were together he wanted to keep her as happy as possible.

So, after a rather sleepless night, he beelined for her home, hoping to find her before she could start working. The yard was still empty and silent, so he went directly towards her front door. He knocked and had only to wait for a minute before the door was opened and he saw Skinny on the other side, with a mug of coffee in her hand. She regarded him for a few seconds, an eyebrow rising, but then she sighed as she gestured for him to enter.

“Come in.”

She pointed at the sofa and Pen complied, sitting down and then watching her as she gulped down one last mouthful of coffee. She then put the mug on the table, before finally joining him on the couch.

“Now, you want to tell me what this is all about?”

Time to bring that ol’ Pen charm to the table. He slightly tilted his head towards her, reaching out to squeeze one of her hands. She didn’t pull back, another rather good sign that she wasn’t as pissed as she had been the day before.

“Listen, I wasn’t angry with you, and I didn’t mean to snap that way. I do trust you, never doubt it. And besides, none of these suckers can hold a candle to me, so I know I don’t have to worry.”

He had done a good job with that monologue, he thought, so now all that remained to do was for Skinny to admit she had exaggerated as well, and…

“Then why, pray tell, would you snap like that?”

…that hadn’t gone the way he thought. His mind desperately started to work, searching for a way to spin back the conversation in a direction more favorable to him. Before he could, however, he felt her hand squeeze him back as she concentrated on his expression.

“Stop bullshitting and tell me the real reason.”

She hadn’t yet a good idea of how much a liar he really was, but sometimes she was able to call him out with impressive accuracy. And…that was a really good question, actually. If he didn’t really believe that a random blonde dandy could threaten his position, then why had he snapped the way he did? Pen usually didn’t like to dwell on his emotions: it was a useless waste of time that had been drilled out of him again and again. However, under her gaze, he found himself unable to resist doing a bit of soul searching.

“I don’t know. I just felt angry. Angry that…he was trying to take you away from me.”

That was it, wasn’t it? He was afraid of losing her. How stupid of him…he would lose her no matter what once his mission had finally concluded, and it was better that way. He couldn’t afford entanglements outside the borders of the Empire, after all.

Still, her gaze softened as she spoke again, her low and almost raspy voice sending shivers down his spine and igniting a fire in his loins.

“You know it’s not like that. And you know I said no.”

He turned away from her beautiful face before he could do something stupid like kissing her. He needed to keep his distance as much as possible, he couldn’t afford to get attached; he had already committed a terrible blunder when he had entered into a relationship with her, now he had to do as much damage control as he could.

“I know.”

Of course, she didn’t let go. She moved her free hand to caress his jaw, from ear to chin, then gently turned his head so that he was looking at her again. Pen didn’t find the heart to resist.

“Pen. C’mon, look at me.”

Her tone, soft and intimate, ignited him again, but he forced himself to focus on her words instead on the images his mind kept conjuring.

“I have chosen to be with you. If there’s a next time, I want you to remember that…and maybe count to ten before doing anything. Can you do this for me?”

He took a big breath in, both to calm himself down and to reflect on her words. With her looking at him that way, he would have said yes to almost anything, but this time what she had said made sense.

“Maybe you have a point. Maybe I got a little too far. Even if nothing really happened in the end! But…the Protector of Sandrock has a reputation to uphold, after all. I’ll try to control myself more next time.”

For the good of the mission he couldn’t afford to be seen as a troublemaker (a real one, not the nuisance he was seen as right now), and on a more personal level he definitely didn't want Alyx to constantly nag at him. If counting to ten and limiting himself to glare at any fool who dared to make a move on his Skinny could save him heaps of trouble, well, he would, it was an acceptable sacrifice as far as he was concerned.

He had a moment to look at her expression, at the smile stretching her lips and illuminating her eyes, before her features tinged with mischief.

“Good. Now come here and give me a kiss.”

For one second his most rational part warned him that it was probably a bad idea to do that when he was already so worked up, and then the next instant he had tackled her, sending her with her back pressing on the seat of the couch as his lips found hers.

She laughed briefly against him before closing her eyes, tilting her head so he could deepen the kiss. He could feel the taste of coffee on her lips, those impossibly soft lips he wished nothing more than to explore and lavish attention upon. Her lips parted and their tongues met, her scent (metal and wood and warm skin) driving him insane.

His hands found her hips, his palms applying gentle pressure as his fingers eagerly traveled upwards, tracing her body under the loose shirt she wore: the curve of her waist, her ribs. Brushing lightly along the shape of her breasts with the pad of his thumbs as he -

Stop before you go too far.

He abruptly pulled away.

They had a second to look at each other, wild excitement flowing away from them and being replaced by confusion and awkwardness. Pen cleared his throat, briefly looking sideways as he got on his feet again.

“Sorry. I didn’t expect this visit to take this long, I have to return to my patrol now. You know this town would fall apart without its Protector defending it.”

It was a lie, of course, but one he had employed fairly often to mask his movements because of its simplicity and effectiveness. It’s not like she (and most other people) would follow him to make sure, her work as a Builder kept her too busy for that. 

He saw disappointment on her face for an instant, but then she pulled up in a sitting position and offered him a somewhat forced smile.

“Of course. Stay safe, Pen.”

Once again, he found himself wishing with all he had that no mission or conflicted loyalty would stop him from returning to her and let their bodies speak freely of their feelings through action. He would fail to resist the temptation, in the end, but in that moment? In that damn moment, he felt all the weight and frustration of his necessary commitment. Still, he couldn’t allow himself to falter, of course.

He mirrored her smile, even if it didn’t reach his eyes, as he leaned forward once again, allowing himself one last chaste kiss on her forehead.

“You too, Skinny. You too.”

Logan sighed, burying his hands in his hair.

“...I don’t know what to say.”

Justice winced, then patted the ex-bandit on the shoulder as Unsuur slid two cups of steaming tea in their direction. The Civil Corp base was a bit crowded right now and someone else had already volunteered for a shift guarding their prisoners, so they had retreated to Unsuur’s home for now. Not that Logan cared much, at the moment.

“Yeah, I know, Logan. Your reaction was…understandable.”

Logan was still trying to make sense of all that had happened. Ged had warned him and he and Rambo had run like the wind to reach the Sandrock’s Temple of the Church of Light. Like the mole-man had said, he had found a tense showdown, Sandrockers and a few soldiers facing off. However, it was the center of the scene that attracted his attention: Alyx, knives out, and Pen, his Relic already charging a blow.

Logan had acted on pure instinct, shooting the Knight with his revolver, not a single instant of hesitation. Except…

“I thought he was pointing that Relic at Alyx. I didn’t realize that… he had switched sides?! How did that even happen?”

Justice looked at Unsuur, then turned again towards Logan to shrug.

“Alyx happened.”

…he supposed that was already an answer.

“Okay, okay. I don’t wanna know more.”

He sighed once again, massaging his temples. If they had told him his most dangerous adversary would suddenly change his alliance just like that, one moment he was fighting against them and the other he was helping them…well, he would have never believed it. Logan had tried to ask Justice if they really trusted him, but the answer had been that it was unlikely to be another betrayal. Logan had his doubts, but for now he was going to keep his mouth shut and his eyes vigil.

Anyway, chaos had erupted after he had shot Pen, the duvosian soldiers taking it as a sign to try and mount some kind of resistance. The following scuffle had been short lived, however, as the Knight had shot one beam at one of the soldiers with his Relic, then barked that he could still kill them all with three more bullets in his body and if they wanted their pathetic lives to be spared they'd better surrender once and for all. Incidentally, that was also the point where Logan had realized he might have made a judgment error, but it’s not like he could change the past.

Anyway, Pen’s threats had been…surprisingly effective, and once Justice had arrived the soldiers had been herded more or less without further accidents in Sandrock's jail.

Then, once the Temple's plaza had emptied and only a few Sandrockers remained, Pen had collapsed on one knee, his hand going to grip his now blood-soaked tracksuit.

…maybe he really should have waited a second more before shooting.

It’s not like Alyx had not been worried when Logan had shot Pen, but…well. Maybe it reflected poorly on her character, but he had looked fine (she had thought the bullet had maybe only grazed him, at first. The blood on his red gauntlet was hard to see in the distance) and she was within striking distance from an enemy soldier. So, for the moment she had concentrated more on the precarious situation they were in, ready to fight until it had been clear that they had won the battle (and to briefly swoop in before Stev could be marched into jail along with the rest of the duvosian soldiers).

It was only when Pen had collapsed that she had realized the truth: he had put on a front until that moment and he needed medical attention. Fast.

Adrenaline and guilt slowed the world around them as she ran towards him as fast as her legs allowed her. She heard herself calling for him, grabbing his shoulder as he raised his head to look at her; this close it was hard to miss the way his forehead glistened with cold sweat, or just how much blood he was losing despite the dark color of his uniform hiding that well.

Doctor Fang. She needed to bring him to Doctor Fang…and luckily for them, he should have been brought into the Temple along with the rest of the civilians. But…she couldn’t really leave Pen alone, she needed to stay with him! She raised her head as she circled Pen’s shoulders with her arms, trying to anchor him to reality or to offer him whatever comfort she could no matter how small. She gave one look around, searching desperately for someone to help her, stopping once she saw a pair of glacial blue eyes fixed on her.

A wave of irritation coursed through her as she focused on Logan, but her rational part knew that not only him shooting Pen had probably been a honest mistake he could only have avoided with information he had no way to have, she needed his help now. She could decide to hold a grudge when Pen hadn’t been endangered anymore.

“Logan! Go call Doctor Fang! He’s in the Temple, hurry!”

She saw him hesitate for a moment, but then he moved towards the Temple, entering from the entrance Trudy had opened a few minutes earlier to go and reassure the population still inside. Good, help was on the way.

“I’m fine, Skinny. You always worry too much.”

She found herself gritting her teeth despite herself as she looked at him. There he was, lying through his teeth so she wouldn’t worry while he was holding his bleeding wound. She leaned into him, her cheek pressing against his forehead as she forced her voice to stay steady.

“I’ll stop worrying after Doctor Fang has told me you’re fine. Stay with me, Pen,” she said to him, squeezing his shoulders as she spotted the familiar sight of Fang with X perched on his shoulder walking briskly towards them. 

She moved to the side to let Fang kneel in front of Pen, then found herself holding her breath as he briefly examined the bleeding wound. She saw him purse his lips for a moment before the doctor raised his head to look at her

“Bring him to…the clinic. Now.”

Alyx sharply breathed in hearing those words:  she had no time to lose.

She quickly grabbed Pen, slipping one arm under his knees and the other circling his back, then pushed him against herself as she rose to her feet.

“Skinny what the fuck do you think you’re-”

Even his protests sounded weaker than usual: had she tried to bridal carry an healthy Pen he would have probably found the way to wiggle out her grasp before chewing her out for even just trying , but now? His body was offering no resistance…oh no, was he going to faint from blood loss?!

She realized that the sight of a minute woman effortlessly carrying a man twice her size could be a ridiculous one (and a big smack to what she called derisively “Pen’s masculine pride”), but at the moment she couldn’t care less.

She heard someone calling for her, maybe Logan, but she didn’t listen, instead turning on her heels to sprint away at the maximum speed she could reach while carrying a large man probably on the verge of going into shock.

Adrenaline fueled her as she ran the downward slope, the sound of Fang’s rapid footsteps following closely behind.

“Keep talking to me, Pen! Don’t fall asleep no matter what!”

The answer was at first a groan, then a fairly annoyed, “Skinny, I’m not going to die, calm down!”

Debatable, but as long as he kept being lucid enough to snap at her she would take it as a win. She slowed down as she neared the clinic, allowing Fang to go forward to open and prep the place.

Once they were inside the Doctor quickly pointed at a table, then moved to open a few drawers in his medical cabinet.

“There. We’re going to…operate. I'll search for…some anesthetic.”

Alyx quickly complied, but as she put him down Pen's head snapped to look at the doctor.

“I don’t need any damn anesthetic. Just give me something to bite on!”

She looked down at him, alarmed, but his confident expression immediately cut off any complaint she might have had. She found herself squeezing the bloodsoaked Relic gauntlet he still had on as Fang walked nearby, tweezers, needles and a wooden bite in hand.

“Ready. Alyx. Will you…assist me? Bring items, if needed. Small tasks. Would distract me.”

Alyx breathed in once again…then nodded. Pen could afford no hesitation on her part.

“Ready, Doctor.”

Pen had survived far worse than a bullet to the guts, no matter if this time it was accompanied by a mild blood loss; he would walk out this one too. Alyx had dutifully helped him remove the Hands, then his armor, then finally his bloodstained tracksuit, all while looking worried sick. He would not make a single sound and make her worry even more, he decided as he put the bite into his mouth; the damn torture he had endured to get a higher pain tolerance than normal could finally be useful for something that wasn’t inflicting the same pain on others, for once.

Steady breath. Mind clear. Concentrate on the mission, on your loyalty…and while he was now a masterless dog, he didn’t have to think much to replace Duvos and whatever task was assigned to him in his mind. His mission was not making a single sound , and his loyalty was to Alyx. It was all that mattered.

He had to bite down hard as Fang finally removed the bullet, his fingers clenching for an instant and his breath quickening, but he managed to do so completely silent. Then, after that, the needle going in and out his flesh, knitting him back, was a walk in the park. Alyx's hand was in his own, it was almost too easy to caress her palm with his thumb, concentrating on the calluses and creases on it and ignoring the pain he was feeling.

Then, finally, the doctor applied the last stitches. Pen got up in a sitting position as Fang looked at the job he had just finished, then nodded at him.

“...got lucky. Grazed the stomach. But. No organs damaged.”

He closed his eyes, sighing in relief as Skinny laughed softly and squeezed his shoulders from her position behind him. Even if he had been modified so that his body would heal faster than normal, an internal injury was still something he would not be able to scoff at. Maybe karma existed, and maybe luck was beginning to turn his way.

“All patched up, I see.”

The voice coming from the door immediately informed him that he had probably rejoiced too soon. Pen raised his head (and felt Alyx's grasp on his shoulders stiffen a little) as Justice walked next to him and…well, he guessed he should have expected it. He suppressed a sigh as he presented his wrists to the Sheriff, ready to be handcuffed…only to be offered a raised eyebrow instead.

“What, you wanna go in the same cell with all the people you betrayed?”

Ah. Justice…had a point, he guessed. Still…he winced a little, scratching the back of his neck.

“...riiight. But I expected you would want to restrain me in some way.”

Justice shook his head, briefly exchanging a look with Alyx behind him before returning his attention to Pen.

“You've earned at least this basic level of trust...besides, I don’t think you'll run away, hmm? Alyx will gladly keep an eye on you. We'll discuss what we need to do tomorrow, and we’ll need you as well. Rest for now."

The Sheriff gave them one last nod, then turned around and exited the clinic.

 So…he was free, for now. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing out in relief, before turning his head to look at Skinny behind him with a small smirk.

“Soooo…your place, or mine?”

In the end, the idea of having to face Burgess (or anyone still lingering around the Temple) had been too much for him, so they had decided to retreat to the privacy of Alyx’s home, no matter the longer distance from the clinic. And…well, he was sure he had left some of his clothes in her wardrobe, so he wouldn’t need to go bare-chested or put back the bloody and torn sweatshirt of his uniform. Right now he was going bare-chested (and had no intention to remedy that any time soon), but attending a war strategy meeting like that sounded like a bad idea.

Anyway, Pen was now sitting on the edge of her bed, lost in his thoughts as Alyx bathed. He closed his eyes, breathing in and out. So, he had done it; he had stabbed Duvos in the back. He supposed that the dog bit back, this time, and that he was probably stupid enough to not even regret it. Oh, sure, he knew perfectly well that he was a walking corpse ( especially if, like Lefu had gloated, HQ bothered to send the Lion Knight after him) and it’s not like he didn’t feel like living many, many more years after this. But actual regret for his betrayal in itself? Nah, he didn’t give a shit. Duvos could go up in flames for all he cared.

“Hey.”

He raised his head, the trail of his thoughts broken, as he focused his gaze on Alyx, leaning against the doorframe of her room. She had left her long white hair free to cascade on her shoulders and was wearing only an oversized t-shirt covering her up to her upper thighs. 

…one of his t-shirts he had left there, dang it. Skinny really needed to stop stealing his clothes. Or…hm. Maybe not, he decided after letting his gaze roam over her, one eyebrow rising in appreciation. There was…something arousing in that sight, a degree of ownership (his shirt, his Skinny) that excited him. She clearly noticed, then shrugged.

“I had no more clean clothes,” she said (she was, as usual, a horrible liar), then she tilted her head as she continued, “how’s the wound?”

Oh, well, they had plenty of time for conversation before he claimed her. He shook his head.

“I’ve had worse, babe. And Fang is a surprisingly good doctor for someone who talks via bird and short phrases.”

Still, her expression was dark, and the last thing he wanted to see this evening was her worried expression. He widened his arms, winking at her before patting on the space next to him on the edge of the bed.

“Hey. C’mere. Having you in my arms will make me feel better, you know?”

She snorted, but she moved towards him almost immediately. He moved one hand to her waist once she had sat next to him and the tension coiling in her body was unmistakable. He resisted the urge to sigh, instead offering her a self assured smile as he gently lifted her chin so she would look at him.

“Skinny…look at me. I’m fine, stop worrying. You know I’m a super tough Knight, right? This little wound is nothing.” 

Her lips twitched, and he finally understood what was going on.

“This is not about my wound, is it?”

She closed her eyes, moving her head to look aside.

“It’s about…many things, actually.”

He waited, knowing that she was gathering her thoughts, and his patience was rewarded when she spoke up a few moments later.

“Remember when you said that I ‘turned on you without hesitation’? I just kept thinking…maybe you were right. I did turn on you, I didn’t even think of talking with you first when I started to suspect.”

…oh. That . Well…he’d be lying if he said that the fact she did turn on him bothered him, on a purely irrational level. But, on the other hand…

“Babe. By now, you should know that you shouldn’t listen to me when I’m angry,” he said, slowly shaking his head as he continued, “but listen, as much as it pains me to admit it, you did the most sensible thing from a rational point of view. I guess I would have done the same in your shoes…I was an unknown danger. Maybe I had never cared about you, and what if I had tried to harm you just because of your suspicions alone?” 

He cared about her more than anything else and he wouldn’t have hurt her, but she wasn’t in his head and sometimes assuming the worst could save lives.

“If you had confronted me about it, I would have lied first, and if I hadn’t managed to convince you with that…well, I would have been forced to act against you.”

He could clearly feel her startle after that. Well, she wanted the truth, no? Truth wasn’t always pretty…in fact, it rarely was. Still, she was probably taking his last phrase too far.

“Don’t look at me like that, I would have never dared to harm you. But you wouldn’t have liked it anyway…especially if I had to interrogate you.”

The glimpse of a bleeding, defiled body invaded his thoughts for a moment, but he was quick to shut it down. No, no, it was all in the past and he would have never , ever even just entertained the thought of torturing his Skinny. He could have broken her down even with just time, patience and using their shared feelings as leverage, all without leaving a single scar, mental or physical. It would still have been a horrible manipulation, but…ah, well. It didn’t matter anymore. It had not happened, and dwelling in the past helped no one.

He shook his head, trying to chase away those thoughts, then rubbed Skinny's hip as he spoke again.

“Can you tell me what happened when you fell down that canyon? Now that we are on the same side?”

He already had a pretty solid idea of what had happened, but he wanted to hear the truth straight from her lips. She nodded briefly, speaking again after taking one breath in.

“I was brought to Logan’s hideout. We briefly fought, even if it was just a test on his part. Then…Grace arrived and told me she was an ACI member and she was working with Logan to uncover this duvosian conspiracy.”

…so, the waitress was a member of the Alliance Central Intelligence, uh? Well, he had kinda suspected it, it was nice to have some confirmation. But…right now, there was another matter that interested him far, far more.

“Just…tell me one thing. When they told you their suspicions…did you believe them immediately? Without evidence? Because I was careful, I doubt they had much more proof than Logan’s word about our fight next to the Water Tower.”

She felt Skinny brusquely lean with her body forward to look him better in the eyes, one of her hands snapping forward to grip his.

“No! Of course not! I…kept hoping it was a mistake, that they were wrong about you.”

She had never been a good liar, so he had no doubt that this outburst was nothing more than the truth in the purest form. She had believed in him until the end, until it had been painfully clear that no, her trust really had been misplaced. He closed his eyes for a moment, sighing softly.

“And then you saw me under the Storage.”

He heard her take in a sharp breath, so he opened his eyes to study her expression. What he found was sadness.

“Not exactly. I knew even before that. When you asked me if anything else had happened just after I returned to town. I…looked at you, and I knew you were hiding something.”

He remembered asking her that…hah. To think that he had ruined everything with his own hands, again. He briefly chuckled, then gently pulled her towards him to kiss her forehead.

“My lovely, smart and insightful Skinny. You know me even better than I know myself, don't you?”

She didn’t react, and that alone was a bad sign. He looked at her for a few moments, her expression darkening visibly second by second. He gently lifted and turned her head with two fingers under her chin, so she would look directly at him.

“Skinny…there’s more, isn’t it?”

She pursed her lips briefly, moving away her gaze for a second or two before focusing on him again.

“...Pen, what did they do to you? The scars on your chest, on your arms...they experimented on you, didn't they?"

He remembered the sensation of drowning very well, from his days of training, and that was exactly what he felt at her words. Lungs constricting, desperately calling for air, the water's deathly cold seeping into his entire body as it tried to trash itself free from the restraints that had been forced on him (it’s just a simple exercise. If you can’t even free yourself, you deserve to drown and stop wasting the Empire's resources). Then he felt himself burning up in anger, his veins feeling again like acid and fire had been poured into them (control yourself! Don’t you dare thrashing so hard you remove the needle again!). He snapped himself back to reality, his teeth gritting instinctively as he tried to stop himself from snarling.

“...if Pipsqueak snitched I swear…”

Alyx shook her head, her eyes filling with liquid sadness.

“No! I overheard two soldiers talking about it. And now you confirmed it with your reaction."

He felt himself burning up, this time in shame…he did give her confirmation, didn’t he? Rookie mistake. He closed his eyes for a second, before moving one hand to her cheek to caress her slowly; for some reason, he felt more acutely about her sadness than the remnants of his memories.

“It’s in the past, Skinny. It’s all over. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

He had survived, he was stronger now. Dwelling on the past would accomplish absolutely nothing, in his opinion. Of course, judging by her expression, that was an opinion she didn’t share, but she sighed softly just after a few moments, closing her eyes.

“I get it. You don’t want to talk about it and I don’t want to force you,” she started before opening her eyes again to look at him, “but if, in the future, you’ll feel like you need to vent, if you need someone who will listen to you, I’ll be there.”

He had a second to feel what little remained of his black, dead heart grow ten times out of love alone…before he remembered that there was likely no tomorrow to speak of.

He could still hear their pleas for mercy, their cries, see the hate in their eyes. 

Bile burned his throat as he shook his head…but was it guilt, or fear to be discovered?

“Skinny, darling. I don't know what will happen in the future. I don't know if you will still look at me with all this love in your beautiful eyes and the thought kills me.”

That’s when he made a terribly selfish and shortsighted decision…but, of course, what was he but not a selfish, shortsighted man? Dread turned into desire as he raised her hand to his lips, gently brushing a kiss over her knuckles, then he leaned forward to whisper against her ear as her eyes subtly widened.

“Babe, I need you tonight. Even if tomorrow you'll hate me, even if tomorrow you'll be disgusted by the idea that I've touched you. I'm a selfish bastard like that.”

In hindsight, implying that he was a horrible monster that ruined everything he touched wasn’t the best way to ask his girlfriend to have sex with him, no matter how truthful that statement was. Her reaction was to lean back abruptly, her red eyes widening even more, this time in something closely resembling alarm.

“Pen, why do you keep repeating that I will hate you? What have you done ?”

He breathed in, his mind working feverishly fast as he tried to find a way, any way, to salvage the situation he had put himself into like an idiot. He squeezed her hand tighter, looked her straight in the eyes as he dug up all the overwhelming love he felt for her and poured it into his next words.

“ Alyx . No. Please, I need one last night, one last time holding you and making love to you with the care you deserve. Tonight, I want to be just one man desperately in love with you, that wishes to connect and fulfill you in the most intimate way possible. Nothing more.”

He wasn’t lying, not exactly. He really wanted to feel her touch, her body, again; he really craved to satisfy her to the best of his abilities. But…well. He knew he was also trying to distract her from that little, crucial matter of just how much blood he had on his hands, he was certainly trying to not let her dwell too much on the question of what he had done in his past…and Alyx knew that as well. 

For one moment, he almost wished that she would say no, that she would call him out for trying to play with her feelings and desires in order to avoid confessing his sins. He saw that impulse into her eyes, that spark of stubbornness flaring up, her lips slightly parting; he braced himself for impact…and then, instead, she closed her eyes, sighing softly.

“Okay. After all, I…missed you. You, and your touch. I want this too.”

It was a rare occasion indeed for Alyx to concede a battle she could win, and the realization that her feelings, her love and her desire for him were trumping her rationality, her more than legitimate doubts, cut off his breath.

He leaned in, planting a kiss on the top of her head. She deserved the world, she deserved a man at least ten times better than he was…but he was the one there with her, and he would do everything in his power to give her his best, no matter how unworthy he really was.

“Know this. No matter what happens, I will never forget you. You've been the best thing to happen to me in a long, long time.”

He leaned back again just as she rolled her eyes.

“That’s totally reassuring, Pen.”

He found himself laughing briefly, his wound aching slightly when his belly moved. He did not care; only she mattered. A little stinging pain was nothing compared to what he had survived, and he would gladly take ten more bullets for just a chance to feel her body again.

“You really can’t help being a smartass, can’t you?” he asked as he pulled her into his lap, his hands finding her waist and rubbing the warm flesh below her ( his ) shirt with his thumbs. 

Her first answer was a cheeky grin. Then, she moved her hands to his shoulders and slowly slid them down his back as she leaned forward, their lips just a hair's breadth away from touching as her palms ignited his bare skin just by mere contact. He could feel the smell of the soap she had used, and the distinctive mix of metal and skin that was so unique to her and never failed to get an erection out of him.

“You love me even despite that, admit it.”

He mirrored her own grin as his hand snapped to bury into her hair. He pulled her head backwards before trailing searing kisses and gentle nibbles from her throat to her jawline, delighting in her soft gasps (her smell was so strong, he wanted to devour her alive). His voice was oh-so-low with an unmistakable rough edge when he finally leaned to whisper next to her ear.

“ Despite that? Oh no, I adore you being a mouthy little shit. Makes the part where you’ll only be able to scream my name again and again even better.”

He pulled her head towards him, their lips crashing into a passionate kiss. He closed his eyes as their tongues met, and he groaned into her mouth as he felt her hands caressing and squeezing his pecs, her lips and tongue leaving his mouth to trail gentle kisses on his neck, her callused fingers starting fires of pleasure wherever she went. She pulled back after a bit, looking at him in the eyes as she spoke.

“You’re a lucky bastard. It’s a safe day today…guess you can go all out, hm?”

He immediately perked up even more at those two little magic words: safe day . No need to pay attention, to stop to ensure they didn’t create a huge mess neither of them wanted. That was a green light, and you know what? He would do exactly that, he would go all out…he needed more, more!

He brusquely moved to yank away the shirt she had on, throwing it on the floor without even looking at it: she was wearing nothing under it other than her panties, and the sight of her delicious little tits alone made him harder. Her perfect little tits that fit so well inside his larger palms, so sensitive when he played with them.

He was so going to fuck her senseless.

It was nothing to pull her up and to push her down with her back on the bed, gaining a small giggle from her. He grinned in her direction as he positioned himself over her, delighting in the sight of her almost naked body under him for a moment.

Then he lowered his head, his mouth and one hand finding her nipples to administer some loving care to. The symphony of her moans as he gently nibbled and sucked and pinched her was something he had sorely missed, and the grip of her hands tangling in his hair to grip his scalp made his excitement spike again.

He slowly retreated from her after a minute or so of that loving torture, looking at her as he let his hand slide lower, gently caressing her soft side (ribs, waist, hips, so damn perfect under his fingers) before stopping on the waistband of her panties. He raised an eyebrow, his unspoken question clear…and Skinny nodded, a small grin spreading her lips wide before she reached for his own clothes.

It was a rush after that, their hands couldn’t remove their remaining garments fast enough between their fevered kisses. It had been far, far too long since the last time they’d shared their bodies if you asked him…and so soon there they were, together, naked and eager and in love.

He moved to kiss her again, his hands gently rubbing her cheeks and his teeth gently nibbling on her chapped lips. He savored the high her delicious scent gave him once again…but then he freezed as he felt one of her hands slide down his side and the other reaching for his length.

No. You have no right to let her work on you tonight. You have no right to accept anything from her.

His hand closed over her own, gently pulling it away from him as he briefly shook his head.

"Babe, don’t."

That clearly took her aback, even if he had used the gentlest tone he could. Her eyes widened, confusion and worry evident in them.

"But..."

Oh no . He needed to restore the mood, fast . He moved his hand to caress her lower face, one thumb moving over her lips before she could continue to talk.

"Shhh, shhh. You did nothing wrong, but this night is for you , and for you only. Next time, I'll let you spoil me rotten instead, okay?"

He realized he had made a horrible mistake the second he saw her freeze…and then bitterness entered her expression, clear as day for just a second before she turned away from him.

"...You really cannot help but lie, don't you? Even now ."

He had already said he didn’t know if there would be a next time. He was just lying to her again to make her do what he wanted, and she had realized.

Anything he might have wished to say turned into ash in his mouth. No, no no …this was not supposed to happen. He just wanted to make her happy at least one last time, he wanted to make up for all the pain he had inflicted on her during the last weeks… this wasn’t supposed to happen! He had ruined everything once again , why couldn’t he just stop lying to her?!

“ Skinny… ” he breathed out in a soft whisper, he didn’t even know what he wanted to say but he needed to tell her something! Of course, she cut him off.

“Shut up. You think you’re trying to be selfless? Or trying to silence your guilt? Well, I don’t want it. If you don’t want this to be a night of truth, I want it to be at least one night of love, Pen. I want to love you, all in. I want to give you back as much as I receive.”

He breathed in as he looked down at her, at the way her expression colored with stubborness. But…wasn’t she right? Wasn’t he just trying to make himself feel better? If he really wanted this night to be for her, then he’d better start allowing her to do what she really wanted to do.

She didn’t want to be a pretty doll, only able to receive and bask in his attention...she wanted to give and take as his rightful equal and partner. To force her to do otherwise was to demean her in an unforgivable way, and he would sooner cut his tongue rather than allowing that to happen now that he had found her again, especially when he was already so close to losing her forever.

She opened her mouth as he took his decision, perhaps to voice another plea, but he didn’t wait for her to speak. He leaned forward, capturing her lips in a searing kiss as his hand snapped closed over her wrist. He could feel her gasp a little into his mouth, clearly surprised by his sudden move, but then he deepened the kiss, his tongue once again exploring her mouth as he pulled her hand downwards towards his throbbing erection. He caught a glimpse of her eyes as they lightened in recognition, and then she leaned into the kiss as her deft, slender fingers found him.

He surrendered to the sensation, in the heavenly pleasure each stroke evoked in him; he allowed his low groans to fill the room as his hands searched for her, as his fingers found her already wet core. He explored her just the way he knew drove her insane, his rough fingers sliding inside her as his thumb teased her, circles small and larger around and over her most sensitive spot, and soon her own pleasured whimpers and moans filled the room.

He couldn’t wait anymore, and neither could she.

Hard to say whether he positioned her (spread her toned thighs apart, delight in the sight of her ready for him to take)  so he could enter her or whether she had guided him to do so (one hand tightening on his shoulder, the other grabbing his shaft to position him against her entrance, eyes blazing with desire as she looked at him), but there they were, their bodies connecting as he pushed into her gradually, letting her adjust, and then finally sliding fully into her with a hiss. He had one second to delight in the wet, warm sensation, and then their hips were soon meeting in a serrated rhythm that left them breathless. He could barely hear the words tumbling from her mouth and mixing with her moans, lost as he was in the mind-numbing pleasure that her body gave him, but he did recognize his name…and, as always, it drove him wild.

He knew her body so well, all her sensitive spots, where to go to give her pleasure…and so he did, catching her lips again in a kiss as he drove himself into her again and again, her hands lightly scratching his back as he pushed them both relentlessly towards their peak.

Their hips met one last time and then white hot pleasure flowed through him; a loud, throaty moan escaping his lips as he came undone inside her. He saw her back arching, a strained gasp escaping her lips as her inner walls clenched deliciously around him, squeezing every last drop of his seed and of his pleasure out of him.

They had come together , as it was right.

He collapsed on top of her as his orgasm burned out, a breathy laugh escaping him as she embraced him tightly and buried her face into his neck. So achingly familiar, so right, he couldn’t help but to think as their bodies slowly recovered, their heartbeats slowing back into a normal pace.

He rolled off her once he had calmed down enough, pulling her into his arms as soon as he was lying on his side.

He had missed this so much.

He looked down towards her, finding her eyes already pointed at him. He couldn’t help but to chuckle.

“You’re looking at me like you fear I will disappear in the morning, Skinny,” he said, moving to kiss her forehead. She sighed as she moved one of her hands to delicately caress his arm.

“Won’t you?”

He knew the future wasn’t going to be rosy, he knew she would likely regret ever getting involved with him. But, right now, there was only one answer that felt right to him.

“I will stay here with you as long as you wish me to.”

She smiled softly, her hand reaching his. As their fingers intertwined and as their breath mingled, Pen wished they could never leave that bed, that their sleepless and love-filled night would never end.

Chapter Text

Alyx had some tense meetings before, like that one time when Yan had tried to force everyone to kiss his hand at the start of the monthly Builders’ assembly, but this one? This one definitely took the crown. 

Trudy’s office had been converted into a temporary war room, a map of Sandrock and the surrounding areas strewn over her desk. Trudy was at the head of the table while a group of people huddled around the map: Justice and Unsuur, Logan and Grace, Director Qi and a clearly nervous Stev that kept looking aside, perhaps wondering why he had been included. And, lastly, she and Pen, with everyone else keeping their distance from them. She tried to resist the urge to writhe under the weight of everyone glancing at them, some gazes (like Logan’s) oozing disapproval. She had promised Pen she would stay by his side no matter what and she refused to back down now, but it didn’t make the situation and the withering stares any easier.

Qi seemed to be the only one oblivious to the tension in the air, eyes sparkling as he pointed to the Northern Plateau.

“Olympia-series’ engines! Fascinating! To think that such a grand project has been lying dormant since the Age of Corruption, right next to me…”

One might have hoped that the clueless comment would decrease the tension…but no, all it did was to remind them of the stakes this operation had. Trudy softly sighed, her tone soothing but firm.

“Director, I don’t doubt it’s a very important discovery, but we have…well. Bigger problems at the moment.”

Bigger problems, yes, like the army currently parked in the Northern Ruins while they extracted engines powerful enough to sustain an entire flying fortress. Duvos could not be allowed to have those engines, no matter what; the problem was that, according to both Pen and Stev, the place was filled to the brim with robotized security systems even before they factored in their human enemies. Duvos might have lost a Knight, but they were still holed up into a perfectly defensive position, reachable only by narrow roads that were surely going to be guarded.

Sandrock, and the entire Alliance, could not afford to waste time: hopefully Atara and Highwind had received their help request and were sending their Air forces to support them (and to bring down the Whale-class airship currently hovering over the Ruins), but doing something instead of just waiting for the Alliance to react could mean the difference between stopping Duvos and giving them enough time to escape with their prize.

They needed a better strategy than just trying to force the roadblock: any approach on foot (or horse) would be spotted from miles away, giving Duvos ample time to prepare. The enemy only needed to fortify and hold the entrance long enough so they could finish the imminent retrieval, after all.

No, they definitely needed a stealthier approach. Alyx bit her lower lip, thinking as hard as she could.

“...couldn’t we try and use the trick we used to free the town? Pen can pretend he has caught a few of us, then sneak us inside for ‘interrogation’ or whatever, and…”

She trailed off as Justice cleared his throat, a worried look in his eyes.

“Uhm…Alyx, you weren’t with us earlier so you don’t know, but…we’ve searched the town, and Yan is nowhere to be found. If we’re lucky, he hightailed outta here and we’ll never see his ugly mug again. If we ain’t…”

A chill went down her spine, the implication loud and clear. She glanced aside as Pen stiffened for a second, before narrowing his eyes.

“...he went and ratted out to Matilda what has happened in Sandrock, including my betrayal. I wonder if Duvos has already been notified.”

They could no longer rely on his former position unless they wished to make a very risky gamble, but more than that it was the last part of the phrase that caught Alyx’s attention. She wasn’t stupid enough to not realize that, by asking him to switch sides, she had exposed him to an almost certain reprisal; however in her mind it was a distant problem, something they could face after safely solving this entire mess and after she’d had time to successfully beg the Alliance to protect him. But if, potentially, Duvos already knew, if the time she had to help Pen reach safety was almost non-existent…well. She felt her throat constrict with fear and guilt: she should have paid more attention, Yan had ran right in front of her when they were liberating the town, she should have acted back then or at least not forgotten totally about him after the worst had passed! It’s true, grabbing Yan here and there could have been risky and after the fight she had been busy with Pen’s wound, but…!

She turned towards Pen, worry creasing her brow, but she saw no fear in his expression. No, instead she could almost hear the sound of his teeth grinding in anger as he spat out, “I knew I should have snapped his neck at the first occasion.”

The weight of the stares on him intensified… oh no. Pen needed all the goodwill he could get once this was all over and this cold outburst, while clearly rage-fueled and maybe not entirely a reliable way to judge him, endeared him to absolutely no one. Yan might have been a slimy bastard, but Pen’s cold attitude towards potential murder didn’t exactly paint a pretty picture.

Once again, she found herself wondering just what Duvos had forced him to do in his past, what horrors he had endured and inflicted, but she dismissed the thought almost immediately: this was not the time.

Instead, she quickly assessed the situation by glancing at the people around the table: Logan was clearly just waiting for an excuse to blow and Grace, currently in spy-mode, was unreadable (well, Unsuur sported a stony expression too, but Unsuur was…Unsuur, nothing out of the ordinary). However Justice, who had seemed mildly supportive the day before, frowned, and Trudy shot her a rather worried look. Even Qi briefly awakened from his space-fueled reverie to raise an eyebrow in Pen’s direction.

She needed a way to salvage this, and fast.

She opened her mouth to…actually, she didn’t know what to say, but she would have resorted to anything, from knock knock jokes to actual uninterrupted screaming, to shift the (negative) attention away from Pen.

Luckily for her dignity, she didn’t need to, as the door opened with a loud bang that startled everyone in the room before they turned towards the source of it.

She immediately saw Elsie, standing on the threshold of the room and with an arm still extended from the shove she had just given to the door. Maybe it was her confidence, but she seemed to occupy the entire space; probably that was the reason why she almost missed the second figure, almost cowering behind her, before she hissed, embarrassment and shyness dripping from her tone.

“Elle!! ”

The redhead quickly turned towards Mi-an, mild irritation coloring her expression for a second or two.

“What?! I'm not stayin’ and waitin’ while they run around like headless chickens!”

By now, however, the shock had worn off from the people inside the office.

“Elsie, were you eavesdropping?” she heard Trudy, behind them, exclaim with a reproachful tone, but the Yakgirl didn’t let herself be intimidated. She put her hands on her hips, head held stubbornly high (while Mi-an, behind her, shrinked with shame).

“Yeah, I was. So what? I have the solution for y’all knuckleheads! But first, what is he doing here?!” she suddenly said, pointing with an accusing finger in Pen’s direction before continuing, “he’s a traitor, why are y’all trusting him again?!”

…well, maybe Alyx had rejoiced a bit too fast. She felt like burying herself in shame as Elsie specifically turned towards her to throw an enraged look. Her question might have been aimed at everyone in the room, but the look confirmed that her barb had been intended especially for her. She could have argued that it was a bit hypocritical for Elsie of all people to call her out for staying loyal no matter what to a person she cared deeply for, like the Yakgirl had done with Logan…but, on the other hand, that was exactly the reason why she was so angry right now. Logan had been on the run for years because of Duvos’ machinations, and Pen had been one of the perpetrators. Alyx could not find the heart to blame her for her anger, even if seeing her closest friend apart from Mi-an to spit venom at her hurt.

Get used to it, she found herself thinking bitterly, because there will be plenty more people that will turn against you for supporting him.

She had time to see Mi-an pale, extending one hand to touch Elsie’s shoulder (was that her way to tell Elsie she thought she had gone too far? Was she just trying to rein her in?) when Pen growled. She didn’t know whether he was irritated because his joining the Alliance’s side was being ignored or because Elsie was pretty much picking on his girlfriend in front of him, but it didn’t matter.

“What I’m doing? Saving this lightforsaken hole! Now why don’t you return to playing with your critters and let the adults talk?”

If there was one thing that made Elsie go ballistic, it was implying that she was still just a child. Alyx saw her face turning the same brilliant shade of her hair before she snarled back, taking one step forward as she did.

“I knocked ya out once, I’ll do it again!”

Any hope she might have had that the situation would de-escalate naturally were immediately shattered. Pen’s grin grew sharper, a sure sign that the comment had managed to get under his skin; having been put out of commission via shovel to the head by one slip of a girl was clearly a sore spot.

“Hah, that’s rich! You were lucky I was distracted, girlie. Want to try again while I’m not giving you my back?”

Logan immediately slammed his hands on the table, not taking well to an implied threat towards a girl that he clearly considered like a younger sibling, growling as he leaned forward with fire in his eyes.

“Why don’t you take on an opponent your size first, you duvosian scum?”

She had manufactured bombs less explosive than this situation, and if she did nothing the situation could escalate even more. Alyx knew Pen enough to know that, sometimes…often his pride carried him away, but right now this spat was the last thing he needed. She thought of discreetly putting a hand over his vambrace, to attract his attention and hopefully make him realize he should have calmed down…but before she could, he scoffed and shook his head, the cold fire in his eyes simmering down.

“Later, I might take up your offer and grind you to dust in a fair duel without your dirty tricks, bandit. Right now, we have bigger problems if you actually want to save this city.”

Pen had acted like a fool for years, but the boastful, arrogant and even a bit clueless veneer was mostly just that, a mask. She knew better than anyone that his mind was unexpectedly sharp…and she was proud of him, for being smart enough to put aside his irritation and pride now that it was needed. He held his head high, throwing one last cold glare in Logan’s direction before returning to look at Elsie, his gaze intense but not threatening.

“You say you have a solution, Yakgirl? Let’s hear this brilliant idea.”

“THIS WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA!”

It’s not like Pen wasn’t used to flight. He had traveled on countless airships of various sizes, and sometimes they had been under fire. It was, however, the first time he had to face the anti-air defenses of a Whale-class airship while holding for dear life onto his girlfriend, currently busy maneuvering a fucking giant duck to avoid being blown to smithereens.

“Stop shouting in my ears and just hold on tighter!” she shouted back, tugging at the reins and making the oversized bird that was carrying all of them narrowly avoid another hit by dipping down.

He was never putting his life in the hands of a brat and her pets again, he thought bitterly as his arms tightened around Skinny’s waist, but at least he got to stay in the saddle. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how it was for the people that the duck was carrying in a big-ass wicker basket…but on the other hand, considering that the people in there were Logan, Pipsqueak, and the waitress…sorry, the spy, he couldn’t care less about that. Oh, the Sheriff was there too, but Justice had managed to gain a modicum of respect out of Pen so he wasn’t included in the “I don’t care” list.

Another dip almost made him break into a long string of curses, but then he saw the blonde spy suddenly lean forward to point at a point below them.

“There! Land there, Alyx!” 

He risked a glance down and to his immense relief he caught a glimpse of the entrance of the Ruins…just a second before Skinny made the infernal feathered fiend dip at dizzying speed towards the ground below.

He was pretty much sure everyone screamed at the top of their lungs at that, him included (even if he would deny it even under torture), but instead of ending up smeared on the rocks of the Plateau they managed a somewhat dignified landing. He breathed out as he relaxed the arms still circling Skinny: at least they got to their destination without using the roads. If they were lucky the airship hadn’t even noticed what exactly they were shooting at, they were hopefully just following the order to bring down anything bigger than a migratory bird nearing the site.

Skinny jumped down the bird and, after an instant he needed to tame his trembling legs (another thing he would never admit), he did the same… ground , solid ground thank the Light! He saw in his peripheral vision the people in the wicker basket descend too, with various degrees of grace, and then the fry-cook…sorry, the spy, hopped into the now vacant saddle.

“This is Captain Grace, and this is your stop! The Daisy-Express will return later for extraction!”

Pen had a moment to wonder why she wasn't staying there to help them, but then realization hit him. He grinned, then pointed to the top of the Whale airship hovering over them.

“Restricted documents are held in the command room. Top level, next to the piloting room. Big ass reinforced windows, maybe don’t try to enter from there.”

The blonde spy’s eyes widened for a second before she laughed curtly, satisfaction clear in her expression.

“Hah! You know, keep acting like this and I might start to tolerate you.”

He looked at her fly away with a light smirk: good. He was very well aware he needed all the goodwill he could get to mollify the Alliance and he could be cooperative and charming when he wanted; besides, a few plans stolen from Duvos made little difference for him at this point concerning his standing with his motherland.

Alyx tugging at his sleeve snapped him out of his thoughts, making him focus on the Sheriff in front of him. Justice nodded as their eyes met, before assessing a quite energetic pat on the shoulder of Pipsqueak, who looked more and more out of his element (especially since he was wearing a Civil Corps’ uniform that was definitely too large for him instead of his old soldier garb).

“So, with Unsuur guardin’ the town, it will be me an’ our new friend who’ll hold the line here. You three are our best fighters, so the Ruins are all yours.”

He was at first mildly annoyed to be put in the same weight class as Logan, but then annoyance made way to dread as realization hit him. Matilda was down there. Matilda knew. No, he had to fight back against this! He couldn’t allow them to…he needed an excuse!

Keeping his expression neutral, if slightly annoyed, he clicked his tongue. He had to appear in charge, sure of himself, not letting his fear to show unless he wanted Logan to catch it.

“Look, I could clear these Ruins alone. There's no need…”

Sadly for Pen, the bandit growled as he turned to look at him.

“Oh, there's plenty of need, pardner. I’ll come with ya. Don’t think you get free range to switch sides again.”

He found himself growling back, unwilling to back down from the challenge and desperate to gain a dominant position over his adversary.

“Or so you can shoot me in the back, Logan?”

He saw Logan puff out his chest, but before he could bark back Skinny stomped between them, eyes blazing and eyebrows furrowed in annoyance.

“Could you two stop arguing for three fucking seconds?! We are all going in. Pen, you can’t fight everyone inside alone, Knight or not. And Logan, try to give him the benefit of the doubt, or do you have evidence he has kept working with Duvos? Yeah, I don’t think so. And I am going with you two, because I don’t trust you to cooperate without someone to beat some sense into you! Do you have more questions?!”

He breathed in…he was pretty much screwed, wasn’t he? If he tried to fight back again, he would look suspicious as hell, but if he brought Logan and Alyx in a fight with Matilda it would be an absolute disaster. That old snake just had to blabber about his role in what had happened to Howlett for Logan to wish he had aimed for the head when he had shot him…and, very likely, immediately try to do it again. Even worse, Matilda could tell Alyx all about what he had done to gain his dreaded reputation. For a second, he wished he had told her himself, that he had removed that bullet from Tiger’s gun, that he had told Skinny his version of what had happened, to try to soften the blow…but then gears started to turn in his head as his cold and calculating part took over.

If he could keep them away from Matilda, if he could destroy the engines before she had the chance to meet them, he could have it all. His sins would only be his to shoulder, and Alyx would never need to know the worst of it, only what he chose to share with her in the future. Logan, too, even if quite frankly he couldn’t care less about what the ex-bandit thought or not, but he could be a problem if he started to make too much noise when the Alliance was about to decide Pen’s fate.

Pen knew the Ruins better than anyone there, and he had a rough idea where the engines were according to the timeline he saw when he last visited a few days before. He could do this, he just had to slip away at the right moment and do what he had to.

So, he hid his true thoughts with a practiced smirk as he shrugged.

“Sorry, Skinny, you’re right. I’ll try and play nice with Mr. Yakboy…assuming that he does the same,” he said, throwing a look at Logan that he filled with as much arrogance as he could. If he could enrage Logan, mark him as unreliable and remove him from the equation (and allow him to have to deal with Skinny alone) his plan would be even easier to pull off, but the Yakboy just glared at him, eyes subtly narrowing. Logan clearly had enough sense to know to not blow at him unless he wanted to be seen as the unreasonable one, now.

“Fine. Stoppin’ Duvos is more important than anythin’ else. So, lead the way and let’s stop wastin’ time.”

Ah, well, he had to try. He could still make it, no need to despair: it was showtime.

“Very well. Follow my lead, then.”

The upper levels of the Starship Ruins had not been particularly challenging: just a few uncoordinated robots, mainly Secretaries and other small fries, and no soldiers on sight. At first, Alyx had been more worried about not letting Pen and Logan fight with each other again (Light, those two could be worse than children!). It’s not like she didn’t know how dangerous this mission was, but at the moment they could deal with most of the enemies there without too much trouble…assuming that they were cooperating properly, that is.

It was only after an elevator ride towards a lower level that trouble started.

She wished she could say it was instinct, or training, or skill…but no, it was very likely pretty much dumb luck, a glance aside at the right moment to see movement in her peripheral vision. Her eyes, keen in the dim light, snapped on the culprit: a small machine attached to the wall and pointing directly at them.

Her eyes widened, then she shouted a warning before diving to the side. She had just the time to see a bright laser shoot from the wall-mounted turret missing her by a hair’s breadth, then the surprise when she felt a hit to her side anyway, a horrible smell of charred leather spreading around her as she was thrown to the ground by the force of the impact.

Alyx saw Pen move swiftly in front of her, one arm held forward, and then the turret exploded in a shower of sparks as a beam from the Hands hit it dead center. She heard Logan’s revolver go off just a second later, followed by another small explosion, but she had no time to consider it further as Pen turned around to reach for her, grabbing her arms and pulling her back to her feet.

“Skinny!”

She breathed out, shaking her head as Pen let her go.

“What was that?” she asked, her hands moving towards the place the laser had hit. Thankfully, it had only been a glancing hit to her side that her duster had endured without too much trouble, but still it was not really something she had expected. Her surprise was not much due to the fact that she hadn’t seen the turret that had hit her in the first place (it must have been in her blind spot), rather than the fact that there were killer defense measures here in the first place. This was a research lab, for crying out loud, not a military facility! It's true, Pen and Stev had told her this place was defended, but she didn't think they'd install turrets!

Pen hissed, a frown appearing on his face as he briefly moved his head to examine what remained of the wall mounted robot, still spilling sparks around, before leaning in towards her to put a hand over the impact site.

“Dammit, I had forgotten about those. I’m sorry, Skinny, you’re not hurt, aren’t you?”

Only when she shook her head he breathed out, his expression coloring with relief before growing serious again.

“The people who built this place were apparently paranoid about intruders, so they installed automatic defenses in the lower levels with no public access. Don’t ask me how, but our…sorry, their techies managed to tamper with the recognition algorithm, so that they file anyone wearing a Duvos’ uniform as ‘friendly’ and everyone else as ‘enemy’.”

His eyes darted once again to the destroyed turret, clearly deep in thought for a second or two. He focused back on her almost immediately, however, his lips pursing for a moment before he spoke again.

“Don’t worry. I won’t let you get hurt, Skinny.”

He moved one arm backwards, grabbed his cape and pulled sharply, freeing the cloth from his armor with one smooth motion. He gave one last look at it, his eyes running over the gray wings emblazoned on it, before returning his gaze on her.

“Here. Let me.”

There was unshakeable resolve burning in his eyes as he draped the cape around her shoulders, will and determination and love shining as bright as the sun as his finger deftly tightened a knot so that the cloth would circle her frame like an asymmetrical poncho, without restricting too much her movements.

She could only look at him, mesmerized, as he offered her a bright grin once he was done, one of his hands moving to caress her cheek.

“There you go. The emblem should be recognizable enough to filter you as friendly. Now you can say I literally have your back, eh?”

That attempt at a joke snapped her out of her reverie, as she realized that Pen was very literally putting himself in the line of fire for her. Her eyes widened: she did not want him to put himself in danger!

“But Pen, what about you? Without your cape…”

His grin didn’t falter for a second, and instead widened before he winked at her and straightened his back.

“Hah, Skinny, you’re underestimating my genius! Look here.” 

His hand moved to rest on his belt as he tilted his hips, in a pose that was definitely more than a little distracting. She actually needed a few seconds to realize that his hand was just near to his belt buckle instead of…nevermind. What mattered was that the Duvos insignia was there. She raised her eyes to look at him, catching the suggestive smirk he threw at her for a second (which, by the way, confirmed that her first reaction to his pose had been pretty much intended) before he returned serious.

“I know it’s small, but these machines are incredibly accurate. If they recognize the emblem on the soldiers’ uniforms, they will recognize this too.”

She was about to reply when a voice brusquely returned her to reality.

“...what about me?”

They both immediately turned, focusing on the Yakboy not far from them…oh. 

Right. 

Logan was there too. 

And had to watch them being all flirty with each other.

She felt herself burn in shame for getting lost in Pen’s eyes, touch and words (...and body) like a schoolgirl in love but Pen, instead, just puffed out his chest before throwing Logan an annoyed look.

“What, should I remove my belt for you? I know I’m a hot piece of meat, but I’m not interested.”

Somehow, that made her blush even more, her embarrassment reaching critical mass.

“Pen!” she hissed, but his first answer was only a shrug.

“Look, it’s either him or me. And don’t you dare even just think of removing that cape to give it to him.”

Shame aside, this was a real problem: Logan would get continuously bombarded with lasers, and the last thing they needed was for him to be reduced like a shooting dummy. She breathed in, forcing herself to calm down as she fixed Pen with her best reproachful look. 

As usual, he caved in almost immediately with a low groan.

“Okay, okay, don’t give me that look, babe. The console that controls the Ruin’s defense system should be on the lower levels. We just have to resist until then.”

It was probably the best they could get. She closed her eyes for a moment, gathering her thoughts before breathing out softly and turning to address the Yakboy directly.

“Logan, for now we’ll just destroy the turrets we come across, then as soon as possible we’ll steal a hat or a jacket from one of the soldiers, so you can wear it until we find a way to deactivate them. Deal?”

It’s not like Logan had expected this mission to be easy , but…he certainly hadn’t expected it would go like this.

He had thought Pen was an incredibly dangerous adversary, perhaps the toughest thing (monster or man) he ever had to face, and he had seen Alyx’s impressive fighting abilities firsthand (even if she lacked experience)…but no, he had been wrong about them. Their fighting abilities alone paled when confronted with the peaks they reached fighting together: Alyx, with her incredible agility, found weak spots for the marginally slower Pen to use, or he stripped away the tough armor of their foes with his blows so that she could do devastating, precise damage. And the defense? Incredible as well, each one taking turns to evade and redirect the heat whenever needed. They weaved together, not a single word exchanged, distracting and evading and hitting like one being separated into two bodies.

Logan had always thought fights were quick, brutal affairs and make no mistake, these were not an exception to the rule, but in their movements there was also an air of…grace, almost like a dance. A connection of two minds, two bodies. It…felt almost like intruding between a private moment between husband and wife, ridiculous as it sounded, and it certainly felt like Logan was there to contribute absolutely nothing.

And to top all of this, the damn hat he had taken from a defeated soldier and he was being forced to wear unless he wanted to be showered with lasers at every occasion was too small.

He was feeling irritated, which was not a good state of mind to have when faced with literal life-or-death situations, so, as soon as they stopped to rest before the final stretch to the lower levels of the Ruin, Logan sat down, breathed in, and decided to make sense of his feelings.

He breathed out, closing his eyes and trying to calm down.

Logan, despite his years of forced banditry hardening him, was not a naturally spiteful person, so why was he so fixated with his feud with Pen? Of course, a bit of bad blood between them was to be expected because they had been enemies, but…well.

Pen might have been a duvosian spy, but he had chosen to throw away everything without hesitation for a woman he loved. And…there was love, clear as day each time he looked at her, in the concern he had for her well-being. Logan would have never believed it possible from the self-centered asshole he remembered from the time they had shared in Sandrock. 

Logan had to admit, the sight of them being so…intimate with gestures and gazes alone made his stomach knot. He hadn’t wanted to dwell on it because it was stupid and irrational, but…he had kinda developed a small crush on this Builder. He blamed Andy for that, and all the times he had sung her praises on how she was so “cool”, which was Andy-speech for kind and brave and strong. Grace had also told him how Alyx had taken care of Andy when Logan had decided to leave him in Sandrock, how she had been there for that poor child when he must have felt alone and abandoned (even if it was for his own good); how she also worked herself to the bone for the town and its inhabitants.

So, yeah, maybe he had idealized her a bit, and when he had realized that the real her was maybe even better than advertised, but in a relationship with Pen of all people (one of the most selfish and obnoxious people he knew), well…it had been a hard blow. It had created a bit of extra animosity (the old and petty “why him and not me?”, even if he was entirely aware of how childish that thought was), which was fine when they were on different sides of the battlefield, but now? Maybe part of his reluctance to trust Pen was due to jealousy?

Suddenly, his suspicions didn’t seem so well-founded anymore, unless Pen was such a talented liar to fake such an incredible level of affection even when he thought no one was watching him. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the Knight was still hiding something, but there was no doubt left in Logan’s mind that he would do nothing that could harm Alyx, including betraying her again.

He also noticed that Pen winced when he thought no one was looking, his hand going to the wound Logan had inflicted with his revolver…and the ex-bandit couldn’t help but to feel a little pang of guilt for it.

Maybe he had judged Pen too harshly, and not entirely for the right reasons.

The big oaf was still an asshole and Logan didn’t have to like him (because he would never do that), but he could at least respect him, build a bridge over their feud and get over it now that they were on the same side.

He would apologize to him for shooting him once this mess was over, he decided. He would look at him in the eyes, offer his hand and hopefully bury the hatchet once and for all, as thanks for changing his heart and helping Logan’s beloved town. If Pen still wanted to be petty after that it was out of his hands and Logan wouldn’t cry over it, but he would be the one to make the first step (because Pen sure as hell wouldn’t). His conscience would be clean, at least on that matter…and Light knew how many things Logan had to blame himself for, having one less to worry about could only do him some good.

“Logan? Are you okay?”

The voice immediately made him jump out of his skin…dang it, he couldn’t afford to get lost in his thoughts in such a dangerous place! Thankfully for him, it had been only Alyx and not, say, a duvosian soldier trying to skewer him. He immediately moved his head to look at the Builder, then nodded curtly.

“Yeah. Sorry, just…thinkin’.”

She, mercifully, decided to not push the issue further, instead just nodding and pointing with her thumb behind her.

“Anyway, Pen says he has found the room where the turrets’ control should be. You should come to take a look, too.”

Logan had as much technical expertise as he had a degree in medicine, but…well, he guessed an extra pair of eyes could not hurt. He nodded, before getting back on his feet with one fluid movement.

“Yeah. Let’s go, I’m sick of this hat.”

“So, you know, I had to listen to the techies brag for weeks when they, airquotes, cracked the code and rewrote the detection criterias. Duvos conquers even the Old World! Their words, not mine.”

Pen snorted, sending a scathing look in the direction of the console they had just finished poring over.

“And turns out, all they did was the equivalent of reading a damn note on the fridge by reading the instructions left by the Old World scientists working here. I feel swindled . Bamboozled, cheated, deceived!”

Alyx, who had her hands still on the console, threw him an almost amused look as she moved a step away.

“Oh, come on, don’t be so dramatic. Besides, I’m not an expert, but most of the work probably went into actually making the machines recognize the Duvos emblem. All we had to do was take an already recognized symbol and put it into the shoot-on-sight list.”

Logan, behind them, groaned as he threw aside the hat he had been wearing, then reached for his belt where he had fixed his old-ass, horned Yakboy hat.

“Yeah, and besides? That damned room with all the lasers we had to cross to get here? That was already hard enough without havin’ to also pore on an Old World thingamajig for hours an’ hours right after.”

Pen would never admit it, but the Yakboy had, for once, a point: he would remember that damn corridor and all the lasers they had to dodge for quite a while after this. But, more importantly than that, he couldn’t help but feel less animosity than usual coming from the ex-bandit...I mean, Logan had just tried to make a basic attempt at conversation, without insulting him even once! Pen had absolutely no idea what brought this change (or even if he was just imagining things), but he wasn’t going to look at the proverbial gift horse in the mouth. Anything that lowered Logan’s guard was perfect for his plan.

He turned again towards Skinny, only to see her deftly undo the knot he had made to fix his cape on her shoulders. She briefly shrugged away the garment, before grabbing it and offering it back to him with a smile.

“Here, I won’t need this anymore. Your cape, Pen.”

He took it in his hands, letting his gaze roam over it for a moment. A part of his mind, a last sputtering ember of what remained of the Commander, reminded him of what he had thrown away: fame, riches, recognition. He would have been hailed as a hero back home. Then the moment passed and he flicked the cape away, not even watching as the fabric hit the ground.

His eyes were fixed on the only thing there, the only person, that mattered as he grinned.

“What a coincidence. I won’t be needing this anymore either.”

He winked at her as her smile grew wider, then Logan of course had to ruin the moment by butting in and telling them to move their asses. It’s not like he hadn't a point, so he shrugged and they started to move again.

It didn’t take long after that to reach one of the lower levels, and for Pen to spot a familiar shape suspended midair. It wasn’t exactly easy to miss and he was pretty much familiar with the sight. He stopped, widening his arms to signal his companions to cease movement, too, then pointed forward with one hand.

“Look, that’s one of the engines. I guess Grace is doing a spectacularly superb job in the airship, because it looks to me like they suspended the loading process.”

Skinny moved a few steps forward, her eyes running over the shape for a few seconds, then she hummed.

“If we cut the cable, it’s going to fall down and crash…it should be enough to put it out of commission.”

He was about to say that he could sever the cable with a hit or two from the Hands’ lasers…but then he realized that this was the perfect point to split. He had just to make sure Alyx and Logan were occupied long enough with destroying this engine, and then his plan would go off without a hitch. Now, he had to be confident, propose a course of action that benefited him without letting them realize there was an alternative. He could do this.

He nodded, like he had been busy considering what to do and he had just decided.

“Okay, listen: the way below is still partially caved in, and it’s going to swarm with soldiers. I’ll scout ahead and go search for the other engine to destroy while you two deal with this one, then you can join me again. If I can destroy the other engine before that, I’ll just turn back and meet you halfway.” 

This was risky, because both Alyx and Logan had reasons to protest this course of action, but he had one advantage: he knew they were playing this game while they didn’t. People tended to naturally follow anyone taking charge with enough authority, or at the very least be less likely to protest. He turned immediately towards Logan, fixing him with an intense stare.

“You’ll need to stay and guard Skinny’s back while she’s busy with that cable…because let’s face it, she’s the one that has the expertise to do it. If anything happens to her while I’m not here…”

He saw Logan considering his request (because of course he did, the Yakboy was a little hero that would never let an innocent be harmed), but before he could answer Skinny moved one step forward, irritation shining through her face. Pen knew her displeased reaction was a likely one, but frankly it didn’t really matter because it shifted her attention away from the glaring holes that he desperately didn’t want them to notice. Why couldn’t they go together after they were done with this one? How was he supposed to destroy the other engine, and if he could, why couldn’t he do with this one? Yeah, the less they reflected, the better.

“Pen, don’t you dare treat me like an idiot damsel! I can handle myself!”

He shook his head, looking at her with a hint of concern.

“I don’t doubt that, and we both know you’re a better fighter than Logan anyway - sorry Logan, that’s the truth. But, I need to point out, even I would have trouble defending myself from enemy fire while busy with something else…or vulnerable to sneak attacks while I’m entirely concentrating on a task.”

It wasn’t even entirely a lie. If she stayed there to cut the cable, then he definitely wanted someone that could guard her back…of course, he had to admit with a smidge of shame, that had been a secondary thought in his mind. The main point was that he needed Logan busy.

Anyway, he saw Skinny’s expression shifting into one of begrudging acceptance…damn, he felt like shit for lying to her again, but what else could he do? He briefly told himself that it was for her own good, that he would make up for it later, then he turned towards Logan once again. Pen poured his affection for Alyx, his concern, into that look and in his next phrase (this is for her own good, this is for her own good).

“Can I count on you?”

The Yakboy, as expected, caved in immediately. He jerked his head in Pen’s direction, a scoff that tried (and failed) to sound annoyed leaving his lips.

“...fine. Go.”

Pen didn’t lose time after that. He nodded and then quickly (but not so quickly that it looked like he was running away) hightailed from there. He moved cautiously but briskly, thanks to the fact that there was only one way down towards the lower levels he wanted to reach, and to the fact that he had mostly lied about the path being full of soldiers. Or…well, it was likely that the turrets they had reprogrammed already solved the issue for him, because there was barely any resistance left.

His destination was one enormous room in one of the lowest levels, the one where they had first individuated the engines years ago. He entered the room running, his training kicking in and preparing him for a probable battle. His eyes rapidly adapted to the relative darkness of the room, just in time to see the biggest, meanest piloted military robot they had found in these Ruins towering in the middle of the space. As Pen watched, it aimed one of his cannons at the last remaining turret on the wall, destroying it just a moment later with a controlled burst of energy. 

He had an instant to see the dead soldiers littering the room (the turrets doing their job, he quickly decided) and the massive shape of the engine near the wall. The robot turned, giving him a full view of Tiger in its cockpit. He wasn’t really surprised to see her, she hadn’t popped out yet after all, but a man could hope his former colleague would trip and crack their skull on the nearest hard surface, no?

“Oh, would you look at that, the prodigal child returns. Now, where did you leave your new friends?”

She had the gall to use her kindly old lady Minister voice, even if it was distorted by the robot’s speakers, and that made his blood boil despite himself. He found himself gritting his teeth as he spat out his answer.

“Shut up, Matilda. I’m not here to talk, I’m here to bring you down.”

He heard a sigh, distorted, and saw her shake her head, like she was gently scolding a misbehaving toddler.

“I really hoped it wouldn’t come down to this, but it’s not too late, Pen. Return to our side, help me subdue those two and I’ll make sure Duvos will treat your momentary betrayal as a way to catch Logan.”

He actually paused for a second before he couldn’t fucking believe the audacity of that witch, and she took the occasion to speak again with the same, vaguely disappointed, tone.

“The Empire made you what you are now. They gave you everything , Pen. Don’t throw away everything you have worked for until now for a pretty face. You know what Duvos does to traitors…nobody is worth it.”

For a second he felt his skin crawl, because he knew pretty well what was his fate had Duvos managed to catch up with him after this…and them killing him was one of the best case scenarios he could hope for. But it was only one moment: he had faced hell on earth too many times to be deterred now, he had survived too much to be scared, even by such a threat.

"...don't try to sweet-talk me, Tiger. Besides, I'd bet you have already notified HQ about what I did, didn't you? Don't try these shitty little games with me, I know how you work," he said, his tone low, threatening. Matilda only shook her head again, closing her eyes for a moment.

“I gave you one chance, Pen. This is not on me anymore.”

When she opened her eyes again, he could see the point of malice in her expression even at a distance, behind the glass that covered the cockpit.

“And yet, why don’t you indulge my curiosity one last time, hmm? How did you convince Logan to work with you after what you have done?”

Boy, hell if he wasn’t glad his plan to ditch the bandit and Skinny before confronting Tiger had worked. Still, Matilda gave one good look at his expression and laughed.

“Oh, you haven’t told them, have you? I wonder how your sweet, precious Alyx would react if she knew what you did in Mobius, or how Logan would react if I were to broadcast into the loudspeaker system just how you poisoned and then murdered his father.”

Her just mentioning Mobius and Alyx in the same sentence made him sweat bullets, and in hindsight that was just what Matilda wanted: hitting him where it hurt the most to distract him, making him snap back in anger instead of attacking her outright. So, he found himself growling as he retorted the only way he could.

“That’s rich, coming from you. You gave me that vial containing the virus in the first place. Anything I did to dirty my hands, yours are no more clean.”

She laughed again, her kindly old lady mask slipping as her expression and voice became colder than steel.

“Oh, really? I don’t remember giving you the order to collapse the quarantine ward’s over Howlett’s head. That was entirely you, or is this poor old lady’s memory starting to slip?”

His anger had always been his weak point, and seeing Matilda trying to shift all the blame on him made him grit his teeth.

“You don’t give me orders in the first place, bitch. And you would have done the same! Was I supposed to let Logan’s plan go off without a hitch, and let his old man ruin our plan by confessing what he knew before croaking? A small explosion with the Hands solved the problem, with no one the wiser. Don’t pretend you weren’t satisfied that I removed a threat to the mission, Matilda.”

She smiled…a smile sharp as a knife.

“Ah, Pen. That’s the difference between you and me. When Howlett died, I mourned his death, even if it was necessary. You, however? You don’t care. All those deaths on your hands, and you couldn’t care less. You’ve only managed to find something vaguely resembling affection for one single person, and just because she opened her legs for you.”

He was sprinting towards her, the Hands whirring into life around his fists, almost before she could even finish her phrase, his mind roaring with an all-encompassing anger that he hadn’t felt in years. He was a beast of instinct, his thoughts screaming at him to make her eat her own words, how dare she drag Skinny’s love through the mud.

The robot was deceptively fast. One second it was there, the next it had activated its thrusters to leap in the air. Pen abruptly stopped, the exhaust smoke almost choking him. No, no time for that. He extended his arms, feeling the Hands hum at his command, the heat of the charging lasers building in his palms. Suddenly, a bright light flared in the chest of the mechanical nightmare; Pen immediately dived to the side, instinct taking over, just as a ray of pure heated plasma hit the space he had been standing in. He got back on his feet as the ray followed his movements, the heat and the light always only a few steps away from him even as he sprinted away.

Only when the light dimmed he dared to stop, his chest heaving as the robot lowered itself back to the ground. So, this huge tin can had tricks, uh? So did Pen.

He brusquely raised his arm once again, pointing his palm to the still glowing core of the robot and shifting subtly to the left so he-

BANG!

Hot white pain shot through his bicep, his shot going wide as he jerked into the direction the bullet must have come from, a growl in his throat and-

Logan was there, standing on the threshold of the room, his revolver still smoking and unrelenting fury twisting his features, and suddenly Pen understood what had just happened.

He felt incredibly stupid: Matilda had told him outright… what if I were to broadcast in the loudspeaker system what I’m saying? He just hadn’t realized that the entire conversation would be heard, his words included, or that she could probably reach the entire facility from her robot. Maybe she had even cut words when needed, so that her role in giving him the virus vial wouldn’t reach Logan’s ears… damn it!

Tiger had dropped the bomb, then all she had to do was stalling for time…and he had allowed her to do so.

He grunted, feeling equally angry at himself, at Logan and at Tiger, one of his gauntleted hands gripping his bleeding arm… dammit , this was the second time he had been shot in less than a week! By the same person! And this time Logan had probably aimed to the head, only Pen's subtle shift in position had saved him.

His irritation soon congealed into horror, however, as he realized something he should have seen much, much earlier. 

Logan was alone.

“Where’s Alyx?!” he suddenly snarled, his increasingly bloody fingers still tightening over his recent wound.

Even as his mind screamed at him that Skinny wasn’t there, where was she, was she alright, his training took over, his feet moving him in a position that allowed him to see both the robot Tiger was on and Logan. Speaking of the Yakboy, Pen clearly saw his mouth twisting into a snarl as he answered.

“Oh, it would be the right punishment for ya, knowing what’s it’s like to lose someone you love. But I would never go an’ kill an innocent, you son of a bitch.”

So she was alive, but it still was not enough information as far as he was concerned. If he had laid even just a single finger on Alyx, Pen would tear him limb to limb… but he never had the time to say anything else, as Tiger’s distorted voice resounded around them. 

“Logan. I know when I’m defeated. You want your revenge? Well, I want mine too on this traitor. I will not interfere in your duel, and then I’ll come quietly to be imprisoned by the Alliance.”

His eyes widened…Logan wasn’t stupid enough to believe her, right? She would watch them tear each other apart and then murder the weakened victor. Pen turned towards Logan, his fingers digging harder over his bleeding bicep, to shout to him to not be an idiot, to not fall for it. Before he could, however, he saw the Yakboy raising his revolver towards him once more. 

Logan was too consumed by rage to think, or too naive to realize Tiger’s lies, and he was unlikely to listen to Pen, of all people.

Well, the Knight thought as he stared at the barrel, he was definitely in trouble this time.

Chapter Text

Alyx didn’t really want to risk dulling her knives when cutting the cable that kept the engine suspended, so she and Logan had started to search for something they could use instead. Logan took the area around the engine, with the reasoning that it was unlikely that they could find something useful there but someone had to keep an eye on their prize, while Alyx went to a room nearby. It looked like some sort of maintenance room, so she started to search as methodically as she could. The light inside was dim but her eyes adapted immediately as they usually did…hmmm, something that could cut that cable, let’s see. Maybe some thick saw? Or would it be better to use some kind of blowtorch? Decisions, decisions…but it was better to concentrate on what she could actually find before making plans.

She concentrated on the search…and yet, something kept nagging at her in the back of her head. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she kept feeling like something was out of place, like she was trying to make fit two pieces of a broken object that were slightly wrong for each other, despite looking okay at first glance. A part of her wanted to dismiss the thought, she had to concentrate on the task at hand. But…what if it was important? What if she had spotted the metaphorical thread that could unravel the entire mission if pulled? 

She straightened her back as she stopped rummaging in the box in front of her, a small sigh exiting her lips. What was wrong? Or, better, was there anything wrong at all, or was it only her paranoia talking? She breathed in, gently massaging her temples for a few seconds before it finally dawned on her.

…couldn't Pen hit the cable with the lasers coming from the Hands? Maybe one hit wouldn’t be enough, but wasn’t it a better idea than just hoping they could find something to cut the cable? Or he could just have hit the engine outright, rendering it unusable…

She felt a cold shiver descend her spine. By this point, she knew what Pen looked like when he was using an excuse, and this situation looked more and more like he had wanted to go alone in the lower levels for one reason or another, and had used the suspended engine as a pretext to do so.

Alyx was so busy feeling her stomach turn she almost missed the words, slightly distorted by static, that started to fill the air around them.

“Oh, you haven’t told them, have you? I wonder how your sweet, precious Alyx would react if she knew what you did in Mobius, or how Logan would react if I were to broadcast into the loudspeaker system just how you poisoned and then murdered his father.” 

She felt her heartbeat drum in her ears, a gasp escaping her lips before she clamped her hands over her mouth, hard. She felt like screaming…Howlett, Pen had murdered Howlett! And…what had happened in Mobius?!

She felt her eyes well with tears and her stomach almost lost its battle with her nausea when she heard Pen answering after a few long seconds of static, and not with the denial a part of her hoped she would hear. That’s when she remembered something important: Logan was just outside the room she was in. If she had heard this, so did he.

A click made her raise her head brusquely, fixing on the Yakboy just outside the room…and the revolver he was pointing at her.

She freezed, her eyes widening, but her body refused to move; maybe it was self preservation, the instinctual reaction of trying to stay still to avoid triggering a violent reaction from a wild animal. She saw Logan focus on her face for a moment, probably taking in her teary eyes and shocked expression.

“...you didn’t know either, did you?”

Before she could answer he moved his arm downwards, a bang resounding around them as he shot the panel that was just outside the opening of the room she was in.

She was already sprinting towards the exit of the room when a red forcefield sprung up, making her collide into the hard and warm surface when she couldn’t stop in time her momentum. She felt her tears slide down her cheek as panic drove her to hit the transparent wall in front of her again and again with her fists.

“LOGAN! LET ME OUT, LET ME OUT!”

She focused on him, on his eyes burning with rage, as he reloaded his revolver with quick, jerky movements.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be comin’ back to free ya once I’m done.”

She could hear the barely held back fury in his tone…immediately followed by the realization of just what he was about to do. She didn’t know what it said about her, but suddenly what she had just heard from the loudspeakers ceased to matter when she thought about him murdering Pen.

“LOGAN! NO! WAIT! LOGAN!” she screamed, desperately hitting the forcefield in front of her again and again with her fists. She had to watch him turn around, without even sparing another glance at her, to run down the same path Pen had taken when he had left them.

Alyx felt herself scream at him to stop, her fists still pounding on the unyielding forcefield, before realizing that it was useless. She felt her legs buckle under her weight, a sense of hopelessness temporarily overcoming her as she hit the ground hard, knees first.

She needed to calm down, she needed to be calm and rational and find a way out. She breathed in and out, her palms splaying over the red forcefield in front of her. Logan wasn’t that well versed in Old World technology, but he had often delved into Ruins as a monster hunter…just her luck that the one of the things he had learned was how shooting or hitting panels next to doors tended to activate them, closing or opening them.

It didn’t matter now, only finding a way to exit did. 

She forced herself on her feet: she had no time to lose wallowing in her thoughts. She had to find a way out…there must be one! Unless this room was a prison cell (unlikely), if there was a panel outside to close the door there certainly was a panel inside to open it back.

And yet, even as she tore apart the room searching for the damn panel, her thoughts kept swirling in her head without pause, an angry swarm of bird pecking and pecking until she could no longer ignore them.

Pen had told her outright he had done terrible things. Why was she surprised to find out exactly what? She was hurt, she realized, but surprised? She had already braced for the worst and, as much as she didn’t want to admit, it wasn’t the crime itself the point that bothered the most.

Of course the murder of a beloved father and important member of Sandrock was a horrible act she wasn’t condoning in any way, but her rational part knew it was just part of the job from Pen’s point of view. Just another death to remove a threat, nothing personal, just for the good of the mission.

No, as selfish as her feelings were, what hurt the most wasn’t that murder (and the hint of more of them), it was that, once again, he had chosen to lie , to try and find a subterfuge to not face the truth. It was now clear that he had done all he could to never let them find out what he had done, only to fail when Matilda had surprised him with something he hadn’t anticipated.

Alyx could forgive him for not confessing out of fear of losing her, even after all the promises she had made to stay by his side no matter what. Him trying to go behind her back and try to sweep everything under the rug was something she was less inclined to let slide.

She shoved a box aside in a bout of anger and frustration… Light, what was wrong with him?! Was it so hard to just stop fucking lying?! She was about to kick the metal shape in front of her when she realized. Metal box? She shoved aside more junk lying on top of it and there it was: a panel not too different from the one that had been outside, except the screen was cracked and broken.

She allowed herself a small grin, but that was quick to disappear when she realized that there were no buttons next to the screen. Was this one of those touch-responsive things with no external way to interact with the program other than the screen? Dang it.

She stopped for a moment, quickly racking her brain for a way to activate it and finding the obvious solution: destroying the console. A few hits with her pickhammer or a gun would have done the job very fast, but unluckily she had neither. Time for an alternative solution.

She breathed in deeply, centering herself and clearing her mind. It didn’t matter if she felt hurt or betrayed, she knew she would never forgive herself if she had let Logan hurt or even kill Pen in his rage. She had to stop the Yakboy, fast.

With a scream she brought down her fist on the console with all the strength and speed she could muster, gritting her teeth as her closed hand broke the panel and the external metal covering. Electricity stung her arm as she grabbed a fistful of cabling and electronic components, but she refused to budge and she soon ripped out a handful of assorted mechanical junk. 

It was with immense relief that she saw the red forcefield dissolve, but she couldn’t consider this a victory yet. She started to run as fast as she could, praying to the ever-merciful Light that she wasn’t too late as the hallways to the lower levels darted around her.

Finally, after a minute or so that seemed to last hours, she burst into a large circular chamber, knives in hand. Her eyes darted for a moment at the massive robot near to the farthest wall from her, taking note of Matilda sitting in the piloting station, and had just the time to notice that she wasn’t moving when a voice cut through the air.

“Skinny! Are you-”

Alyx lowered her eyes, snapping instantly on Pen and on the bleeding wound in his upper arms. She had time to see his eyes, full of relief and joy and love , and the sight was as painful as a punch in the gut. How could he love her so much, and yet continue to hurt her again and again with his lies?

She forced herself to look away from him and concentrate on Logan, not far from Pen. The two men had clearly been locked in a fight before her arrival had interrupted them, and the furious glare the Yakboy threw at her told her that this was not going to be solved with words alone.

She pursed her lips, her eyes quickly flitting to the robot that had now taken a few steps towards them. Seems like Matilda wanted to get physical, too.

“I’ll take Logan, hopefully make him see reason. You deal with Matilda,” she said, pointedly avoiding looking Pen directly in the eyes again as she turned towards the fuming Yakboy.

“You trait-”

She lunged towards Logan in the same instant Matilda shot a laser right to the position she had been in, and then it was on.

Stray lasers rained down on them as Pen moved to engage Matilda, but her attention was only on the man in front of her. She tried to grapple Logan, cursing as the much larger man put up a strenuous resistance. She didn’t want to harm him, only subdue him as painlessly as she could, but for once her speed didn’t help. It was a contest of raw strength, and she was at a slight disadvantage.

They fought like animals for a bit, desperately and without rules. He planted an elbow in her gut, her vision growing hazy with tears, but she grabbed him by a leg and pulled with a guttural scream before he could move away. He fell with one knee on the ground, and she was on him immediately, planting a hard punch on his jaw. She didn’t lose time, immediately tackling Logan on the ground before he could get up again.

She finally managed to straddle him, pinning his arms down with a strangled scream even as he tried to buck her off. She saw him snarl, maybe even trying to bite her as she desperately pushed him down with all her strength.

“You can’t possibly be siding with him! He murdered my Pa! That man was worth ten times more than he will ever be!”

Her grip tightened on his arms as she couldn’t help to imagine what she would do if it was her Da the one a random duvosian soldier had killed, and suddenly all her rationalizations about Howlett’s death being nothing personal, just an unpleasant part of Pen’s job, went out of the window.

“He will face justice, Logan!” she found herself screaming back instinctively, only to recoil as the whole situation crashed down on her. There was no way out of this that didn’t involve pain, and she found herself swallowing as she forced out her next words in a tone that dripped with defeat. 

“He will…face justice for what he has done. He has to answer for the pain and harm he has caused.”

She felt Logan stop struggling against her and, finally, she realized she had got through him. She breathed in, forcing down the lump in her throat as she continued.

“But, Logan, please. We need to at least stop Duvos first! If we fight among ourselves, they might slip away with the engines.”

Logan breathed in sharply and for a second she saw his rage dissolve into raw, heartfelt pain…but it soon hardened into cold, barely restrained fury once again.

“Fine, I know you’re right. But mark my words: this is not over, Alyx. He will get what’s coming to him.”

She didn’t find the strength to answer to that, instead just slipping away from him and getting back on her feet. She offered him a hand, but he pointedly ignored her offer as he got up on his own, readying his revolver a moment after.

“Let’s bring down that duvosian snake,” he said, pointing the gun at Matilda’s robot.

The fight with Matilda had been absolutely brutal. Despite the robot having a very noticeable weak point, hitting it with enough strength to cause actual damage was another matter entirely. She and Logan resorted to chucking the bombs they had found in the earlier levels, but they had to get close to do so and Matilda very definitely didn’t allow them to do that easily. Pen was their heavy hitter, but he was bleeding heavily and having a bullet lodged into his arm wasn’t making any of this easier.

Still, blow after blow, they brought Matilda and her robot to their knees…and that’s when the tragedy happened. In her haste to not be defeated, she activated some kind of emergency mode that shot the piloting pod up in a straight line, smoke blinding and choking them all for a moment.

As the smoke started to clear, realization hit Alyx: Matilda had just shot herself in the sky, maybe into space. She had the time to feel a jumble of conflicting thoughts and emotions before she caught, in the corner of her eye, Logan raising his revolver again, pointing it straight at Pen.

The truce was over, she realized.

“Logan, no!”

She did not hesitate. She darted in front of Pen, widening her arms to cover him with her body. She hoped she could make Logan see reason, giving him pause enough to convince him that taking revenge like this wouldn’t make him feel better, he would only make him a cold blooded murderer…but all she saw in Logan’s eyes was all-consuming fury.

He did not lower the gun, and the clicking sound that resounded loud and clear around her told her that she was about to be gunned down too had she not moved away from Pen.

Alyx felt cold sweat run down her back as she heard Pen’s voice behind her, begging her to move away, her instincts shouting at her to listen to him, to dodge, to-

You are throwing away your life for me, the least I can do is to stand by you no matter what.

She made her decision in an instant. She breathed in, her back straightening as she looked at Logan straight in the eyes, fear completely gone from her mind.

She didn’t care about what he had done. He would answer for his actions, but she would not leave his side while he did. She knew he wasn’t a monster, she knew the man below the Knight he had been forced to become…and she would stand by that man, no matter what.

Go ahead, shoot me if you dare. I will not move a single step away from him.

She saw the flicker of uncertainty in Logan’s gaze for a second, a bead of sweat sliding down his cheek…but it lasted very little. She saw him grit his teeth again, his finger moving to the trigger as she felt Pen’s hand grab her shoulder to shove her away and-

BANG!

Logan shouted as the revolver jumped out of his hand, and Alyx immediately turned towards the source of the shot. Her eyes widened as she saw Justice, his still blazing pistol in his hands, standing still at the entrance of the room even as a dozen Alliance soldiers entered the room, their guns pointing at them. 

“EVERYBODY, FREEZE!”

She saw the Sheriff nod at her as he lowered the gun, the distant sound of explosions coming from above shaking the structure even miles below the ground.

It was over…or was it?

Alyx fidgeted, straightening her clothes for the hundredth time in probably five minutes.

After the Alliance’s reinforcements had arrived (and the duvosian airship had been shot by a squadron of Alliance fighters and forced to retreat), she and everyone in the Ruin had been brought back to Sandrock. During a series of ‘informal hearings’ (that had sounded more like an interrogation) in front of a stern Air Force officer the truth of what had happened had come out.

She was free, of course, but Logan and Stev and Pen had all been taken away to be locked away while the Alliance decided what to do. Duvos betraying the truce and invading one of the Free Cities was not something the Alliance could ignore, and a few big shots had arrived in Sandrock the previous day to see how to deal with this immense trainwreck.

In all this maelstrom of political scandal and uncertainty, her only stable rock had become Major Trudy. The woman had come to her as soon as she had heard what had happened, and her question had been simple: “What do you want now, Alyx?”

Alyx had told her. She wanted to rebuild, she wanted a normal life for poor Stev and a fair treatment for Logan because, no matter the bad blood now simmering between them, he had to suffer an immense loss and become a bandit to save Sandrock. And, most importantly, she wanted mercy for Pen.

Trudy had just nodded after she had finished, offered her a smile and then she had gone to the meeting with all those Alliance big shots. Facing something like this would have made a nervous wreck of the little woman she had met months before, after Trudy had returned from the desert with yet another defeat on her hands, but now the Major walked with steel in her expression and not an ounce of fear. When, hours later, Alyx had been called into the same meeting room, she understood that her requests had been relayed and heard.

She was outside the room for only a few minutes, probably waiting for a previous meeting to finish, but even that little time felt like damn hours. When the door opened and Sandrock’s Representative, Mr. Gregorcyk, signaled her to enter she breathed out in relief…only for her anxiety to flare again when the politician didn’t enter again with her.

A quick glance inside the room told her that only two people were inside: the stern Commander that had spoken with her before, Commander Avery if she remembered correctly, and an older soldier, probably a very high ranked one judging by his medals and grades.

“Miss Alyx. Please, take a seat. You have already met Commander Avery, and I’m General Ling.”

A General. She knew the situation was complicated, but to have such a high ranking officer there didn’t calm her in the slightest. In fact, she finally understood why Gregorcyk had exited the room: this was a military matter. She sat into the chair she was offered, the sound of blood rushing in her ears so deafening she almost missed General Ling’s words.

“I know what you must think. But we assure you, not a soul here doubts your commitment and loyalty to the Alliance, and even if we did both the Sheriff and the Mayor guaranteed for you. You’re among the heroes that helped save Sandrock, and nothing will change that.”

To be completely fair, the possibility that she could be considered a traitor had never dawned on her…until that moment, that is. She was in a relationship with what had turned out to be a Duvos Knight, she had recruited a Duvos soldier…one could argue she had shared her bed with the enemy, literally and metaphorically. She felt nauseous, silently thanking both Justice and Trudy for their unwavering support and friendship as the General continued.

“You will be pleased to know that your request on the behalf of the simple soldier Stev has been accepted. The only crime he has verifiably committed is participating in the invasion of Sandrock, after all, and even then his contributions in saving this town cannot be ignored. Mayor Trudy has proposed for him a small period of community work, to help repair the damage done to the city, and then I’m told the local tailor has requested him as an apprentice.” 

He paused for a moment, letting his words sink in before continuing.

“Regarding the bandit, Logan, his cooperation with the ACI has made the charges of terrorism against the Alliance decay. He will only have to answer for property damage and banditry against Sandrock, thus his case will be dealt with locally.”

A small part of her rejoiced at the news, but she was aware that they were giving her the good news first, sweetening the pill so to speak. General Ling studied her expression for a moment (which did not help her anxiety).

“As you might have guessed, your other request is…much more problematic.”

The General stopped, clearly giving her space to talk: it was now or never. She breathed in, her resolve hardening as she looked at the older man in front of her in the eyes.

“I know he murdered an innocent man in cold blood, and…I won’t try and pretend it’s something that can be brushed over. But…I killed too, during this invasion. People that maybe had been forced into service by hunger and desperation, but that were enemies anyway. And Pen too, like Stev, turned around and saved the town. In fact, I don’t think we’d be here, with us Sandrockers safe and Duvos’ plans foiled, if not for him.”

Her eyes moved to the other, so far silent, officer, taking note of his barely held back scowl before speaking again.

“I’m not saying that he deserves to get away with all he has done scot free. I’m here to ask for clemency. To…consider that, when he was given a choice, he chose to do the right thing, no matter the personal cost to him. Duvos will not forgive this betrayal, and you know it.”

She briefly shifted her gaze to look at the General’s reaction, finding a carefully neutral expression, before the younger Air Force Commander sneered, even if he tried to school back his expression into neutrality.

“The murder of Howlett is just the tip of the iceberg, Miss. Sabotage, espionage, assassinations…and those are the crimes we are certain he’s guilty of. Then, there’s the crimes we cannot prove.”

“Commander Avery.”

The tone of General Ling’s words had been stern, not even reproachful, but she recognized a warning when she heard one. The Commander must have understood too, but he didn’t let himself be swayed.

“With all due respect, Sir, she has the right to know. Duvos might have denied that anything happened in the first place, but I know. And I will not speak as a Commander of the Alliance Air Force, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

She could feel her stomach knot horribly, but the words exited from her mouth anyway, the question burned in her mind since she had heard it in the Spaceship Ruins.

“What happened in Mobius?”

She saw a flicker of surprise in the Commander’s face, immediately followed by a shadow marring his otherwise handsome features.

“Not many know. But I had family there, and some of them survived to tell the tale.”

He breathed in, and then he began to speak.

The duvosian leadership had thought the Alliance would be easy picking, this time. They had built their forces, developed new weapons, created and trained new, genetically enhanced, Knights to replace the old generation. Despite that the conflict had dragged on and on, the ferocity of a cornered animal and the new technologies churned out by Vega 5 allowing the smaller federation to resist Duvos’ onslaught.

In all that chaos, it was inevitable that there would be some that tried to take advantage. The three former Free Cities had risen to rebellion, spurred by Duvos’ perceived weakness and their own desperation to free themselves from their terrible treatment at the hand of their master. Arcadia, once a place of gentle rolling hills and larger plains of fertile soil, now was a nightmare that churned out food to quell the infinite hunger of the rest of Duvos, paid with the sweat and blood of the farmers. Baja, once a center of the arts, had become an infinite landfill. Mobius, once a center of technological research, had been turned into an industrial dystopia, churning out bullet after bullet and weapon after weapon to spill blood and conquer.

Duvos had, of course, decided to immediately squash that little rebellion. Arcadia was the first to fall, and Baja soon followed…but Mobius? Mobius resisted: the rebels had seized the factories, arming themselves and, perhaps more importantly, managed to find a powerful ally. One of the old Knights, the last of the generation where no needles and concoctions had marred their flesh and their veins. They had called her the Snake Knight, but now she had shed that name like her namesake shed its skin and the rebels hailed her as the Valkyrie of Mobius.

Duvos needed that image, that symbol, squashed as much as it needed Mobius’ factories back, and so the three new generation Knights were dispatched, along with their squires. It was a good learning opportunity, they said.

The Lion Knight was (nominally) at the head of the operation, and with him there were Wasp and Bear. And, with their veins still throbbing with faint pain from their last enhancements, behind them followed the surviving squires.

They had started as twenty selected recruits, ten to Wasp, ten to Bear and none to Lion. The brutal training and the even more brutal experiments had thinned their numbers until only one survived for Wasp, and two for Bear…and then only one for Bear, as the Knight had quickly declared that only the strongest of his apprentices was worthy of surviving.

Pen had been the strongest, and now he stood with his back straight as he listened to his orders, his barely adult body still with discipline even as his mind yearned for the thrill of the fight, to finally put his pain into the service of his country.

It was soon apparent that what he got, instead, wasn’t a fight: it was just slaughter. Most of the rebels barely knew how to use a weapon, and the few that did were no match to someone who had already been assigned a Relic Weapon.

Still, he fought no matter what, knowing that Duvos needed the city back to their control. The Valkyrie clashed and clashed against the Knights, but she was only one woman and she could not hope to outpower them, nor to stop all their attack when they divided their forces to hit multiple objectives at once.

The rebels’ morale crumbled, but it was soon followed by arguing and fighting inside the duvosian Knight’s group. Lion, backed by Wasp, wanted to offer some kind of mercy, arguing that they needed people to work in the factories after this whole mess was solved (and training new workers would have taken time they didn’t have during a war), while Bear was in favor of harshest retribution, to discourage further attempts.

The power struggle went on for a while…until that damn day, that is.

Pen was following the tracks to a rebel’s hideout, crushing the feeble resistance in front of him like he had done so many times before. He extended his arm, the Hands vibrating around his palm as he charged a blow, aiming for the building he had been tasked to destroy. His hit must have set off the pipes that brought gas to the heating system because the building exploded, the vibrations and the force of the impact making his bones ache even as he planted his feet to not be blown away.

He heard screams, he choked on the smoke…and only blind luck saved him from the spear that would have pierced his skull from ear to ear had he not shifted at the last second.

He rolled away, his eyes widening as he took notice of the woman in front of him, her graying hair billowing in a long braid behind her and steel in her green eyes. Seems like his prayers for a good fight had been answered, as he now faced the Valkyrie of Mobius in all her glory.

She readied her spear again, her eyes briefly flickering behind him, towards the still burning building, before she concentrated all her attention on him again.

Her boots, her Relic, flared to life as she launched herself towards him, faster than a middle aged woman had any right to be even considering the extra boost. He was a young man at his full strength, his body genetically altered to be superior to the one of a normal human in almost every way possible, but she had experience and the desperation of someone losing a war. He parried each swing, the impact of them making his bones ache, but soon the spear was drinking his blood, nicking at his skin whenever he was too slow to dodge or parry.

He wished he could say that he had found some kind of hidden strength that allowed him to best the Valkyrie, some incredible feat of fighting or his determination spurring him to greater heights. No, he found himself facing the destroyed building, noticing the small figure trapped in the rubble he had created and finally understood why the Valkyrie’s eyes kept flicking back to the former building. He remembered extending his arm, his Relic Weapon charging a blow almost by instinct; he remembered the Valkyrie's eyes widening, before she quickly closed distance to push away his arm, just in time for the laser to hit a building in the distance.

He remembered the sensation his other fist felt, even under the Hands, as it impacted with all the strength he had into her guts, making her spit blood despite her armor…and then the sickening crunch her skull made as it gave away under a second punch.

He remained there, his chest heaving as realization hit him: he had taken down the Valkyrie of Mobius. He could only watch her twitching on the ground before stilling, his eyes widening.

He won against the Valkyrie of Mobius, as a squire, when even the Knights hadn’t managed to do that…but he had only done so because he had used a dirty trick. She was probably a better Knight than he would ever be and yet she laid dead at his hands. It didn’t feel like victory at all.

“I guess a commendation is in order.”

The cold voice made him snap away from his thoughts, his body instinctively moving into a salute as the Bear Knight walked towards him, a cold smirk stretching his lips. Pen was big, but Bear dwarfed even him, and for a second the primal fear the man had instilled into him during training reared its ugly head before he could gulp it back.

He was no longer a weakling and he was victorious, he had nothing to fear, he had to remind himself even as his body instinctively tensed.

Bear nodded towards him, stopping for a moment to spit on the corpse on the ground.

“Fucking bitch,” he growled, before moving to clasp roughly Pen’s shoulder. “Good job, squire, and it appears you even found a rebel we can interrogate for information. You're really gunning for a medal today, aren’t you?”

Pen’s mind, still running on adrenaline, needed a few moments to understand what he was talking about. It was a few moments too much for Bear, as he growled before gesturing quickly towards the ruined building.

“Well? What the hell are you waiting for? Do you think I want to dirty my hands to drag that rebel out of the rubble?”

He felt his voice speak (“Sir, yessir.”), and then he was marching towards the girl still desperately trying to free her legs from the large piece of concrete that had crushed them.

She was young, probably one or two years younger than Pen. She had long platinum blonde hair and almost golden eyes that looked up at him in terror. Her nose was peppered with freckles and Pen couldn’t help but to think that, if he had met her in a bar or in a dance hall, he would have spent the evening trying to make her laugh and see if her blush would make those freckles disappear, maybe trying to steal a kiss or two had she allowed him. Now, however, he felt himself roughly grabbing her, dragging her away from the rubble even as she desperately tried to get away from him.

Bear nodded as he watched him pull along the crying girl before offering him a sharp grin.

“Let’s bring her to the command tent. Then begin the interrogation, squire Pen.”

Pen had been at both sides of a torturer’s tool plenty of times: training to resist, training to inflict. He knew how to suppress his emotion, to see the person in front of him as just a training dummy, to concentrate on the vulnerable point as he asked his relentless questions. It was just a body, just a puzzle to unravel to find the answers he seeked. It was for the Empire, for the good of Duvos. Harm one, save thousands, he thought as his big hands worked with remarkable precision to extract screams and answers.

She crumbled remarkably quickly, his tools barely bloodied, and it soon became apparent that the girl in front of him knew basically nothing. She was probably just a civilian who had found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time, not a rebel.

Pen sighed, allowing himself to slowly exit from the detached state he had to reach while interrogating prisoners, but before he could put down the tongs in his hands a cold voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Why aren’t you continuing?”

A cold shiver descended his spine as he turned towards Bear, sitting not far from him with a bored expression that nonetheless spoke of a swift retribution had Pen given the wrong answer.

“Sir? I believed she had nothing more to say. Was my interrogation not correctly performed?”

The Knight raised an eyebrow, but at least he didn’t seem to be angry with the answer he had received.

“Hm? Oh, no, she clearly knows shit, you’re right.”

Pen knew he should have just offered his usual “sir, yessir” and obeyed, but he found himself hesitating, his mind swimming with questions as the girl behind them softly whimpered. Bear rose from his seat, slowly, and in that moment Pen braced for the worst. Maybe he would just smack him, or maybe he would be executed on the spot…but, instead, Bear just put a heavy hand on his shoulder, slouching slightly to look him in the eyes.

“You are asking yourself why then, aren’t you.”

Pen knew his life was suspended by a very thin thread. He straightened his back, schooling his features into the cool and detached expression that was expected from him.

“Sir, I will obey my orders without hesitation.”

He did not expect the man in front of him to laugh. It was a cold, curt laugh that sent shivers down his spine, but retribution did not follow. Instead, Bear just patted him on the shoulder harshly before moving away towards the communication equipment they had installed in one corner of the tent, linked to loudspeakers around the city. Pen saw him clasp his hands behind his back as he continued to speak.

“Of course you will, but you aren’t being trained to be a simple soldier, you are being trained to be a Knight. A leader. And a leader has to ask himself why, even when following orders from above.”

Bear turned, the glint of his smirk overflowing with malice.

“You still cling to this naive idea that you are a defender, a shield in front of Duvos. Frankly, I don’t give a shit what you tell yourself after a day of butchering people, as long as your loyalty stays unwavering. ”

Pen found himself trying to swallow, but his throat was far too dry for that. He could only stand there, at attention, as Bear patted the equipment behind him, sadistic glee making his eyes shine.

“So, call yourself a protector if that’s what you want. But, in order to protect Duvos, you have to be prepared to do anything. Protecting Duvos means, sometimes, that you go in a room and you torture a girl to death just so her dirty rebel friends hear her screams and think twice before opposing us again. Was I clear, boy?”

He could hear the girl behind him crying, begging for mercy as she realized what was going to happen to her. He felt sick, his stomach turning as he realized his devotion was going to be twisted into something heinous. He wanted to refuse, he wanted to free the girl behind him, he wanted to say that no, Duvos didn’t need the horrible death of someone who wasn’t even a grown woman yet and likely wasn’t even involved in the rebellion in the first place.

He did nothing of the sort.

“Sir, yessir.”

Bear’s smirk widened, sharp as a knife as his hand moved to hover over the equipment behind him, grabbing a microphone.

“Go do your job, then, Protector. And make this show last.”

Pen could barely hear the desperate pleas of the girl behind him anymore as he turned, plunging the tongs he had in his hands into a nearby brazier until they were red hot.

For the Empire, he managed to think as the microphone cracked into life when Bear flipped a switch.

“Hello, rebel scum, this is the Bear Knight speaking. You could have stayed put under Duvos’ generous rule, but you had to make a mess of our town, didn’t you? Well, that was a bad idea. The traitorous bitch that defended you is dead, and now my squire will demonstrate what happens to anyone who thinks that they can fight the Empire.”

He willed himself to feel nothing as screams filled the tent, his mind only focusing on the next point to break, the next vulnerable spot to inflict damage to, for the Empire, for the Empire.

“...Enjoy, good people of Mobius.”

This was not a girl, it was just a training dummy, just a body. Remember your lessons. New instrument, the tongs are cold. Don’t let her go into shock, or she will no longer scream.

For the Empire.

Alyx could see Commander Avery close his eyes, taking a deep breath to calm himself after he had stopped talking.

“Her name was Tessa. She was fifteen. My cousin. She was such a brilliant and kind girl, and she wasn’t even offered the mercy of a quick death. My aunt had to hear her scream as they tortured her to death for who knows how long. As that man tortured her to death.”

She felt like vomiting, but she forced herself to hold his gaze as he glared at her, the pain in his eyes clear.

“Do you still want to ask for clemency, Miss? For a monster that had none for his enemies, none for harmless civilians that couldn’t even defend themselves?”

“Commander,” General Ling, so far silent, warned him, reminding him to be as collected and as professional as his rank required.

Alyx was grateful for the temporary reprieve. She gulped down bile as she stood straight once again. 

“Yes. I am still asking for that.”

She saw the shock’s on Commander Avery’s face, but she decided to push on before he could reply.

“A soldier follows orders. You should know this better than me.”

Barely held back rage flickered in his expression as he snarled, “how dare you compare the Alliance to-”

She didn’t let him finish his phrase, courage building again inside her.

“That’s exactly my point. If he had been an Alliance soldier, this would have never happened. Duvos is a horrible cancer that corrupts everything it touches, Pen included. I have no doubt that he could have refused to…do what he did. You know what would have happened? He would have been executed on the spot for disobeying orders, or worse.” 

Alyx couldn’t help but to imagine that poor girl, the pain and the fear she had to endure, and that almost made her lose her nerve. But she had decided which side she was on, and she wasn’t one to back off easily.

“He has done horrible things? Yes. I don’t doubt for a second that your words are true. But I have said that before, and I say this again. He has turned on Duvos at the height of victory. Do you really think a cold-hearted murderer with no mercy left in his heart would have done that? Isn’t it more likely that he’s just a simple man, not a monster, that was forced into horrible acts to survive, and that he jumped at the chance to finally be free?”

She looked at the Commander once again, her eyes softening as she pleaded.

“Please. Let him atone for what he has done. He deserves that chance.”

General Ling interjected before Commander Avery could answer.

“Thank you, Miss. We have heard your testimony, and your reasons. We assure you, we will take them into consideration.”

It was a clear dismissal. Alyx nodded, then got up on shaky legs and left the room.

She breathed out, leaning against a wall for support as her head swimmed. She had done all she could, and now she could only hope it was enough.

What a mess. Avery pinched the bridge of his nose with a shaky hand before straightening his back again. He knew he had stepped out of line, so he turned towards his superior officer.

“General Ling. I apologize for the way I acted, it was unbecoming of my position. However, I stand by the spirit of what I said.”

The General briefly shook his head, a clear signal that he was going to let this slide considering the circumstances, before continuing.

“We will need to act with the lightest possible hand, Commander Avery. This will be a blow to Duvos’ morale: an operation foiled and multiple desertions, including a high ranking officer. A Knight, even. We might inspire more soldiers to follow their example if they realize the Alliance is willing to treat those who do with generosity and mercy.”

Politics, always politics.

“I am aware, and this is why I was in favor of the way we handled that simple soldier. But that monster? He does not deserve mercy. He should get reductions to his sentence appropriate to the information he will give us and the contribution to Sandrock’s liberation, I will not oppose that. But nothing more.”

General Ling studied him for a few seconds before speaking again.

“Miss Alyx seemed to believe he was redeemable.”

Avery stopped himself from sneering. That woman deserved his respect, she had fought admirably to protect Sandrock and the Alliance all, but he couldn’t ignore that her point of view was definitely biased. It hadn’t been that hard to discover that she had been in a relationship with that Knight, and he guessed her reaction made a certain amount of sense.

“General, a young woman still in love despite discovering what kind of person her significant other is, presumably because she had no time yet to process everything, is hardly reliable. The ex-outlaw had a very different tale to sing.”

With that being said, there was one thing she had said he couldn’t refute.

“But she had a point, I guess. He probably didn’t desert out of opportunism.”

General Ling didn’t answer, at first. He moved towards the desk, taking up a folder and extended it in Avery’s direction. The Commander took it, waiting for the General’s next words.

“Commander, me and the representatives have drafted a rough range of what sentences we can give him. The harshest is ten years in our maximum security prison in Atara, a sentence we can lower up to six years.” 

General Ling said “harshest”, but all Avery heard was “slap on the wrist”. Damned politics, the Commander thought once again, but he did not protest outright: not only he hadn’t the authority to do so but, as much as he loathed to admit it, the Alliance’s best course of action was encouraging more duvosians to follow the Knight’s example, just like the General had said. If even just cooperating when captured could shave years, then outright saving a city was definitely worth even more…even if he really, really wished that wasn’t the case considering who they were talking about.

General Ling, however, was not done.

“But, let’s face it, it’s a shame to have a Knight and not use his skills. The lightest sentences, provided he’s judged worthy of them and there is no risk of escape, are years of service in the Alliance development project. From seven to three years, considering the very real risk of injury or even death on the job. Of course, I'm not talking about the Northern settlements your friend Gaudi is overseeing. I'm talking about Project Bulwark.”

Avery’s eyebrows knotted as he finally understood where General Ling was going. The Northern settlements were a strictly civilian matter, but Project Bulwark was a creature of the military. Volunteers had been handpicked, soldiers had been dispatched, and he knew even a few convicts with the right skills had been recruited, offering them shorter sentences in exchange for their work. In fact, a rudimentary first settlement had already been established, but expanding it was going to be another matter entirely. A Knight was definitely an incredible asset…problem was, he was reluctant to admit it, considering who this particular Knight was.

General Ling nodded as he continued.

“The way I see it, you represent all the people that have been damaged directly by his actions. So, we’ll offer him a choice.”

He raised his index fingers, his eye shining with calculating intelligence.

“First option, a public trial. Lengthy process, and one he will have to weather in an ataran cell with no guarantees it won’t land him in prison for a long time in the end. Or, second option,” he said, raising his middle finger too, “he will accept your judgment, provided it's between the parameters I outlined, no buts and no ifs.”

Avery needed a second to understand what the General was proposing.

“You are leaving the last word to me.”

It was a good move, Avery had to admit. Even despite his disgust with the man himself, the temptation to acquire such an asset for the Project was strong. The Knight was unlikely to attempt escape and they would spare the resources to protect him from the certain duvosian reprisal (because the Project’s location was, for now, a closely guarded secret). Lastly, by making him choose, the General eliminated the possibility of his protests and put a part of the responsibility of an eventual failure of Project Bulwark on his shoulders.

“I want you to go talk to him, Commander. Find out for yourself whether he deserves mercy or not. I trust you enough to make a decision that will be as objective as possible.”

Avery chose to ignore the political ramifications. He would judge for himself if the Knight deserved a second chance; he would make sure justice was served no matter what, no matter how convenient it was to sweep everything under the rug, even if it meant Project Bulwark failed. And, Avery decided with a small pang of unease, if that monster was still human after all…well, then he would do the right thing.

“I will, General. I will.”

Chapter Text

Pen had no idea how much time he had spent in that tent, his mind refusing to register the passing of time. He could only perceive the tools in his hands, the way flesh gave away under them.

Suddenly, he felt shouting and movement at the entrance of the tent, but he couldn’t stop obeying his orders, he couldn’t manage to shift his attention, he was stuck like sometimes he found himself in front of a mirror. He wanted nothing more than to stop, but he couldn’t, and if he did Bear would kill him, coward, coward-

“What the fuck do you think you’re- ”

More shouting, more movements, and then a hand grabbed his shoulder, instantly snapping him from his daze as he was firmly pulled backward.

“That’s enough, squire. Step back.”

Lion was short and physically unimpressive compared to Bear or even the statuesque Wasp, but there was something in his demeanor that just screamed command. It wasn’t the fear Bear used to keep everyone in line around him, it was something deeper. He hadn’t even raised his voice, and yet Pen found himself obeying without thinking.

He walked backward in a daze as Lion sighed deeply, giving one last look at the barely alive corpse (Light, what had he done, what had he done- ) strapped to the torture rack. His daggers flashed, and then it was over, a precise cut that ended her suffering as quickly and efficiently as possible.

That was the moment Pen realized Bear had just got up from his sitting position and was marching towards them despite Wasp so far keeping him away. The rage he could register on his master’s face made his skin crawl, and he instinctively stepped back.

“You don’t get to order my squire around, you pathetic freak-”

That broke the veneer of Lion’s composure. He turned around with a snarl, fury making his red eyes blaze.

“ You don’t get to go over my authority, Vince! I’m in charge! What the fuck were you thinking-”

A hand closed on Pen’s vambrace and he turned to look at his fellow squire, a vaguely nervous man around his age who looked absolutely horrified, as the two Knights started to argue ferociously.

“Pen, we need to-” he started to whisper, but even just that was enough to gain the ire of Wasp, standing not too far from them with her hands crossed and barely held back wrath.

“The hell are you two gawking?! Get out of our way before I get even more pissed off!”

They were lucky that Wasp usually barked before biting, instead of just striking first like Bear. Still, the other squire stiffly saluted, clearly anxious to vacate the premises.

“Ma’am, yes ma’am.”

He quickly grabbed Pen’s arm again and promptly dragged him away out in the cold air.

Alyx had been busy listening to the winds picking up speed outside, a clear sign of an approaching sandstorm, for what might have been hours. The heavenly aroma of the once steaming mug of coffee Trudy had got her before going out from her office had, perhaps unsurprisingly, failed to lift her mood. Now the coffee was cold, and she was sure there was probably some kind of fitting metaphor to be found in that had she-

The sound of the door clicking opening immediately snapped her out of her thoughts. She perked up, watching with her full attention the Mayor entering the room. The other woman closed the door behind her, leaning on it with a small sigh before offering Alyx a small smile.

“Alyx, I’ve got news.”

She had moved towards the Mayor even before noticing, nervous energy flaring as Trudy pushed herself away from the door to gently put a hand on Alyx’s arm.

“Commander Avery will finalize Pen’s sentence soon.”

It was not the definitive answer she was hoping for, but at least it meant that she wouldn’t need to spend weeks or months or years waiting and- wait. Commander Avery would be the one to finalize the sentence? A shiver ran down her spine: he was definitely the last person she wanted to pass that judgment, considering his past and what had happened to his family. She swallowed, forcing herself to speak anyway.

“When?”

Trudy briefly shook her head.

“I don’t know, but I’ve heard he got delayed by his other responsibilities for now. In the meantime, I managed to get you visitation rights.”

There was so, so much still at stake, but considering she had been forbidden from even just talking to Pen for days she quickly decided that she would get whatever mercy she could get for now. 

“How…how much time do I have?”

“Technically two hours. I tried my best, and Justice will stall as much as he can to give you more time than that, but your window is still rather limited. I’m sorry, that’s all I could do.”

Trudy briefly pursed her lips after finishing her phrase, before tightening by a fraction the grip on her arms in an encouraging squeeze.

“Go talk to him. You deserve it, either as some kind of closure or to know if you still wish to go on.”

Alyx didn’t need to be told twice. She nodded curtly and, as soon as Trudy let her hand fall, she moved out of the office and half walked, half jogged towards the Civil Corps’ base despite the angry winds swirling around her.

Justice threw the keys to the interrogation room at her as soon as she had entered and made eye contact with him. He just nodded, before quickly gesturing with his head to a few Alliance soldiers lingering nearby.

He didn’t need to add more. Go ahead, I’ll keep them off your back as long as I can .

Her visit had been approved, according to what Trudy had said, so she simply marched upstairs towards the interrogation room without hesitation: any nervousness could lead her to be stopped and questioned, and she had already dramatically little time as it was. She only stopped in front of the room to unlock it, the sound of the keys being turned thundering in the empty hallway.

She quickly closed the door behind her as she stepped into the room, her eyes adapting immediately to the relatively dim light in the room to focus on the man not far from her.

Pen had been lying on a cot hastily thrown in the corner of the room and he barely turned his head to look at her. It was very, very much not a good sign.

“Skinny. I wasn’t even sure I would see you again before I would be taken away.”

He looked…fine, all things considered. He must have been bandaged, because he had been wounded and bleeding heavily the last time she had seen him, but it was impossible to see if he really was under the shirt he had been given to wear (they hadn’t let him wear his armor, of course). His hair was becoming increasingly unkempt and the dark shadow of a beard had begun to darken his cheeks and chin…Light, he hated being scratchy, he shaved almost daily unless his duties got in the way. For some reason, the sight of that, even if minimal, neglect made her emotional, but she pushed down that sensation. He wasn’t being abused, she told herself, he just didn’t have much access to toiletries at the moment.

He got up into a sitting position unhurriedly, almost like he was making a point of moving only a few muscles at a time. She didn’t know what she was expecting, but this…neutrality, this apathy wasn’t certainly it. She had at least hoped he would be relieved to see her and, instead, he looked almost…annoyed, like she had just disturbed him during a very important moment.

Her irritation flared, but she forced herself to keep it down for the moment: she needed to understand what was going on first. She moved a few steps towards him, stopping right in front of the cot.

“I distinctly remember putting myself between you and a bullet. Do you really think I wouldn’t want to see you again?”

He had the gall to shrug, a clear dismissal of her last phrase.

“That was the heat of the moment. After you had time to think clearly about it…who knows?”

Okay, she had little time and the last thing she wanted was to waste it playing games. He had absolutely no reason to act like this towards her. She crossed her arms, raising her chin defiantly as she looked down at him for once, thanks to his sitting position.

“We need to talk, Pen,” she said, her tone firm, and that finally got a real reaction out of him. His eyes narrowed slightly, his upper lip twitching to bare his teeth for a moment.

“What do you want to talk about, Alyx? There’s nothing to talk about. I’m a murderer, and worse. I have blood on my hands. Were you hoping it was all fake? It’s not, it’s nothing more than the simple truth.”

Why did he have to act like this? Why couldn’t they have a frank discussion, instead of hiding behind arrogance and posturing? She deserved at least that, they deserved at least that…so, if he wouldn’t do it, she would. She poured all her hurt into her next words, hoping to break down the wall he was trying to put up between them.

“...you tried to hide it from me. You tried to lie to me again.”

She saw a moment of indecision in his eyes, and she hoped that, finally, he would just tell the truth, no matter how ugly, that he would bare his heart to her. But, instead, he shook his head before looking away.

“I didn’t lie. I told you. You’ll be disgusted with me, you’ll hate me…how many times did I tell you? But you were too blinded with love to believe me, didn’t you? Now we’ll both suffer.”

It took all she had to not scream at him, to push down the wave of anger his words provoked. She breathed in, sharply, forcing herself to keep her tone even as she answered.

“Don’t you dare blame me-”

He never let her finish her phrase. One second he was sitting and the next he had sprung to his feet, his hands grabbing her arms just below the shoulder in an uncomfortably tight grip, his control slipping.

“Stop hiding behind that stupid good girl facade you love so much, there’s room for only one liar in here! Get angry, spit venom, hit me, I don’t care! Just stop fucking pretending to be calm and collected, damn it! I can’t stand it! ”

They remained there, locked into that position for a few instants that seemed to stretch on and on, his chest heaving after his outburst. She felt her eyes mist, even if she refused to let herself cry, as she looked at him in the eyes, perhaps trying to catch any emotion passing through them.

Then his lower lip twitched and, without warning, he pulled her brusquely in a crushing embrace against his chest. He smelled like sweat and disinfectant but there were still hints of his scent even below that, and it felt so right, so familiar. His body trembled slightly, and her first instinct was to wrap her arms around him, too, to keep him close to her, to remind him that she was there with him.

That was, apparently, the wrong move, because he suddenly disengaged, pushing her sharply backward, away from him (Light, why did that brusque separation hurt so much?), keeping his hands on her shoulder to block her in place as he looked at her face again.

“Babe, don’t…don’t, just don’t. You’re lying to yourself again.”

He was flipping through his moods faster than an unanchored flywheel, and she was starting to get dizzy because of it.

“Lying to…I don't get it, what are you-”

The grip on her shoulders tightened subtly before he lowered his head, his tone equal parts venom and sorrow.

“You still think I’m a poor, unfortunate soul that was forced by the big bad Empire into evil. Skinny, it doesn’t work that way. I did what I did because I wanted to.”

Her breath caught in her throat because she felt that, in some way, that was the truth. If she were to ask him if he regretted what he had done, the answer would probably be ‘no’. She felt a pang of pain thunder through her chest, but a part of her refused to let go completely, to accept that lying down. He did what he did because he wanted to…but wanted to do what? Become rich, famous, powerful, strong no matter what? That, she could believe, she knew him enough to know what he valued, to know the core of selfishness that animated a lot of his actions. And yet, even if he did what he did because he wanted to become more, to do that he had followed orders, not his whims.

“You can't seriously expect me to believe that you were completely, utterly, one hundred percent on board with every single order you received. That if you hadn’t been a Knight sworn to Duvos, you would have still woken up in the morning and done the same things.”

He hesitated, because of course he did, not even he had the brass face to lie so openly to her face and tell her that oh, yeah, he totally enjoyed torturing a girl to death and who knows what else, it was just a hobby like any other. But he didn’t let her win that, oh no, his pride couldn’t let her have even just that.

“Listen. I get it, you think you're still in love with me, I even saved you from Duvos’ clutches.” 

Redirecting the conversation so he wouldn’t need to admit she was right, classic. Her first reaction was to scream at him, but what would she have gained by that? Just two idiots shouting at each other and going nowhere. Instead, she fixed him with her best steely glare, her head held high.

“Are you really sure you want to waste this precious little time we have to hide your head below the sand? Do you want this to be the last memory we have of each other?”

Something shifted in his expression, a point of vulnerability and the clear realization that he was throwing away perhaps the last chance he got to make things right with her to follow what his stupid pride demanded. He closed his eyes, a sigh escaping his lips.

“...If you were to still love me after this, I would take it like a gift from the Heavens. But I don’t want you to have illusions about what I am. I’m tired of you loving something that’s not me.”

The sheer honesty and hurt and longing in those words almost made her heart break in two. She pursed her lips before she moved one hand to trace his scratchy jaw from ear to chin, a gesture that always seemed to calm him and get his full attention.

“Pen. What makes you think I love you for something you are not?”

She shook her head before he could reply, hastily adding, “I’m not happy about what you did. Of course I’m not. But…is that really you?”

He looked annoyed for a moment.

“Yes. That’s me, Skinny. I am a man capable of murdering a man in cold blood, and worse.”

She knew, and she wasn’t trying to deny that, as much as it hurt. She nodded, holding his gaze.

“...you are. But is that all you are? Or did you fake everything while you were with me? Every gesture of affection, every joke, every confidence you allowed yourself to share, even your increasingly less rare moments of kindness. Was it all a lie, a manipulation of some kind?”

She saw the impulse of dissimulating once again passing through his expression…but she also saw him discard that instinct almost immediately.

“No. I lied to you about what I was, but nothing else. I didn’t lie about what I felt, I didn’t act a certain way to manipulate you. But-”

She sighed, knowing exactly where he was going.

“But it doesn’t change what you did. I know, I get it,” she said, her tone suddenly tired. Why couldn’t things be simple? She loved him, she was sure of it, but it didn’t mean she approved the depths of what he had sunk to in his past, that the knowledge of just how many people had suffered at his hands didn’t hurt her, either.

She closed her eyes for a few moments, trying to rein in her emotions: this was neither the time nor the place to break down. She only opened her eyes again when he heard him sigh, catching the rueful smile now curving his lips.

“I’m an asshole, am I? A better man in my position would be here, worshiping the ground at your feet just because you didn’t spit on his face. And yet here I am, trying to push you away. To hurt you more.”

He shook his head, moving one of his hands to her cheek to push a rebellious strand of hair behind her ear. That was the first real gesture of affection he had consciously allowed himself since she had entered, she couldn’t help but think.

“How are you holding up, darling?” he asked, his tone softer, before he gave one good look at her expression and grimaced.

“...yeah, stupid question.”

It was (a stupid question), but it also wasn’t. Of course she felt like shit…but he also had taken time to ask, to show concern. She shrugged.

“I’m trying. It’s…not easy, as you can imagine.”

His expression softened a little as he moved his hands to cup her face.

“I’m sorry, Skinny. You deserved better than this. Better than me.”

That self-deprecation didn’t suit him, she found herself thinking. She would take back his obnoxious bragging any time, just so she didn’t have to see him beat himself, no matter how justified he was in doing so. She held her head high as she met his gaze with her own.

“I didn’t want ‘better’. I wanted you. I…still do. You’ve made errors. You’ve done horrible things…but it’s over. You can atone. You can try to make up for it.”

She was being a little too optimistic, and both of them knew it.

“No amount of atonement will ever resurrect who has died. You know it.”

The phrase hung in the air for a few seconds, its weight cutting Alyx’s breath for a moment. Pen gave a good look at her dejected expression, took a big breath in and then, despite all her expectations, smiled. He moved his hands to cup her face gently, lifting it so she was looking at him.

“Hey, hey. I guess you’re right, I’m out of Duvos’ clutches now. I can be a real Protector this time if you want. Your dashing hero, ready to save the day, fight scoundrels and disappear into the sunset to return home to his beloved Builder. How does that sound, Skinny?”

He was using his “Protector of Sandrock” tone again, and that made her smile despite the seriousness of the situation.

“...it sounds one hundred percent Pen-style.”

His expression turned even warmer, affectionate, one of his thumbs moving to gently trace her lower lip.

“There you go, babe. Such a beautiful smile, just for me,” he whispered, his voice dropping an octave lower. It was the kind of voice he used in their most intimate moments, and her body reacted almost automatically, all that was happening around them forgotten for the moment. She stepped forward, her hands moving to encircle his waist as he did the same. He was warm, so warm, his embraces were always so comforting like a soft blanket, she managed to think before he bent his back, lowering his face so their lips could meet.

Something snapped inside her at that, overwhelming need (for affection? For his touch?) flaring inside her as their tongues met. She moved her hands to grip his hips, pushing him backward towards the cot. He didn’t resist, realizing what she was doing and pulling her along with him as he sat on the edge without ever breaking their increasingly heated kiss.

She slid her hands to his shoulders, pushing him down the cot as she moved to straddle him. He purred appreciatively as she looked down at him, a deep sound that reverberated in his throat and made her want to ride him right there, right now. His hands traveled north, one tracing her spine and the other tangling in her hair, and then he pulled her down so their lips crashed together once again. She moved her hands to trace his pecs, catching for a second the mad hammering of his heart below her palm…and then, suddenly, he pulled her backward away from him.

“Wait. Wait, Skinny. Are you sure-”

It wasn’t like him to hesitate (especially when she could clearly feel his arousal growing and growing under her) and that brusquely brought her back to reality. She gave one good look around at the interrogation room around them and she couldn’t help but cringe a little. She was still completely down for it had he allowed her, but…

“...yeah, I know, it’s not the best place. But it’s soundproof, so we wouldn’t be heard.”

He cleared his throat, moving the hand that had been tangling into her hair to push his own unruly mane backward (no wonder he was dependent on hair gel, his hair was a nightmare to tame otherwise).

“I mean, the risk to be discovered is kinda turning me on even more, but that’s not what I was talking about.”

He moved one hand to place the ghost of a touch on her lower belly… ah, right. She shook her head.

“Don’t worry about that. I don't think I'm fertile right now, but I have some herbal remedies I’ll take later, just to be sure. Do you think I’d risk letting myself get knocked up when the father is-”

He cut her off before she could finish the phrase, a cold shadow marring his expression.

“A murderer, Alyx?”

She was a fucking moron. No, that’s not what she meant, but what she had meant was still going to be a hurtful thing to say all the same. It was too late to take what she had started to say back, however, so she just gulped down and finished her phrase.

“...probably going to spend the next decades in prison, Pen.”

Pen looked almost relieved for a second, but then the full weight of what she had just said hit him. He groaned, closing his eyes for a moment.

“Yeah...that, too.”

Congratulations Alyx, she found herself thinking, you ruined it. 

They were silent for a few moments, both lost in their thoughts before Pen got up in a sitting position (with her still straddling him) with a sigh. He looked at her in the eyes, before moving the hand that wasn’t supporting his weight to gently thread his fingers through her hair as he offered her another wry smile.

“It’s not too late to turn back, Skinny. Find yourself a better partner…you’ll have a line of suitors the day after it gets out you’re single again.”

She had been exasperated by his tendency to self-centeredness in the past, but you know what? This new habit of assuming he knew what was better for her and trying to act as a selfless love martyr was starting to piss her off even more.

“Do you want me to turn my back to you?” 

Her irritation must have registered to him because he frowned. He let his hand fall from her hair to her lower back, his thumb gently tracing circles over her shirt.

“...no, of course I don’t. I want you to wait for me to be a free man again, no matter how long. No matter how horribly selfish that wish is. But it’s unfair to you, and you know it.”

She had always prided herself in having seen behind his mask, finding the man behind the facade of the brainless jock…but now she knew that her vision had been only partial. Now, however, she knew all of him: the good, the bad, the ugly scars of his past. And, she found herself thinking, it didn’t change what she felt for him. She knew what he could do at his worst…but also what he was at his best, what he could do when love coursed through him and pushed him over his faults. And that man, the man he could be, was more than enough for her to face the Knight he had been, it was enough to let her look at his scars, physical or otherwise, and love him more for them.

He had made mistakes, but that time was over: they could try to rebuild instead.

She allowed herself a small smirk as she moved to cup his cheeks, her fingers gliding over the rough surface of his growing beard.

"Perhaps. But if it is the price I have to pay to have you, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

She couldn’t help but think that, lately, any intimacy they had managed to get had been tainted by the shadow of separation, now almost a certainty. She still would get any chance she had, one last time to help remember him during the length of his sentence.

“So, Pen. The only real question is, do you want this? Because I do.”

He looked at her for a few seconds, clearly debating what his next action should have been, but then he nodded, his eyes lighting up with desire as he grinned.

“Do I want this? Like I want to breathe. It’s not even just a want anymore, it’s more like a need.”

She almost wanted to laugh out of sheer relief, but she held herself back out of fear he would misinterpret her reaction. She leaned forward to catch his lips into a kiss again, trying not to think just how much she would miss this, how much she would miss him. He let his hands wander over her body as he always liked to do: slowly, teasingly, stopping on all the sensitive places that made her squirm in pleasure. This time, however, she couldn’t allow him to have his way and go as maddeningly slow as he was used to. She broke the kiss, looking at his puzzled expression for a moment while she caught her breath.

“We don’t have much time.”

He frowned, because of course he would, but the urgency of the situation must have been clear to him, too. He removed his hands from her as she jumped off him and, believe her, she had never yanked away her shoes and pants faster than this.

She noticed Pen made no move to undress, and her suspicions that he was holding back on purpose were confirmed when he grabbed her hands when she moved to unbutton his pants after straddling him again. She was about to scoff, to remind him that they had no time, but he shook his head before she could, fixing her with a vaguely reproachful look.

“No. You’ll hurt yourself if you try to take me now.”

Bold of him to think she wasn’t already quite excited.

“I am already-”

She was expecting to be cut off, but she wasn’t expecting the soft tone he used to do that, one of his hands moving to gently grab her chin so she could not look away from him.

“Indulge me, darling. Do this for me, if you insist on not caring about your own body.”

She wasn’t not caring about her body, and she pouted at the suggestion. That brought a smile on Pen’s lips, and he let a chuckle out before he could stop himself. He kissed the tip of her nose, the almost pure gesture a bit ruined by his hands moving to grip and massage her now bare asscheeks just a moment later…not that she was really complaining about it, mind.

“Can you blame me for wanting my girlfriend to actually enjoy making love with me, instead of just pretending she isn’t in pain?”

The cheeky tone was still enough to make her realize that there was a fine line between not having time and rushing the only moment of intimacy she’d probably get to spend with him for a long, long time. Her eyes widened in shock before she sighed, leaning with her forehead against his.

“I’m sorry.”

His answer was to plant another quick kiss on her lips, his hands moving upwards so he could grip her hips.

“Don’t be. Come here, doll.”

He lowered himself so his back was on the cot again, and Alyx understood immediately what he had in mind. She allowed him to pull her forward until she was just above his mouth, and she couldn’t help but close her eyes as he started to plant a few kisses over her inner thighs first, then moved towards her center with wet kisses that left a trail of fire in their wake.

“You smell so good I could devour you, Skinny…” he managed to breathe out before throwing himself into his self-assigned mission. She felt herself whimper softly under her breath as he started administering slow, unhurried open-mouthed kisses all over her inner core…and she gasped outright as he suddenly pulled her down on him, plunging his tongue as deep into her as he could.

He meant it when he said ‘devour’. His tongue and lips were relentless, and she almost lost her rationality entirely when he moved to tease and suck gently her clit. Not even his growing beard was enough to dampen the incredible sensations he was effortlessly getting out of her with his skilled tongue. His hands kept her still, despite her body trying to rock her hips against his mouth to get more of that delicious torture.

Soft moans and pleas started to get out of her mouth as her pleasure started to build inside her, lighting her lower abdomen with familiar fire and ache, growing with each stroke of his tongue, with each gentle (and less gentle) suck.

It was heaven, but this was not what she wanted, she realized in a moment of clarity just as her climax rapidly approached. She wanted to reach her peak along with him, not before, not after. She pulled back with her hips, and he understood something was wrong because he immediately let go of her, letting her retreat backward.

Pen looked up at her, a shadow of worry clouding his expression before she smirked at him (after catching her breath for a moment).

“I will come over your cock along with you, Pen. I hope you have no objections.”

He looked surprised for a moment, and then he just guffawed. He cleaned his mouth from her fluids with the back of a hand before grinning and moving his hands to rest behind his head, like he was just chilling on a beach instead of inside an interrogation room (it didn’t matter where they were, it only mattered they were together now, she had to remind herself). 

“Oh, bold words, but I think I approve of the idea. Can’t wait to see you bounce on my big, fat dick while I lean back and enjoy the show.”

She just shook her head, amused by his antics, and then she moved down his body, resting on his knees as she moved to unbutton his pants and yank down his underwear. This time, he did not attempt to stop her, instead sighing softly as she moved one hand to stroke his already engorged member a few times, the twitch under her palms unmistakable.

“Tease,” he muttered as she finally positioned herself over him, but the smirk that he couldn’t fully suppress told her all she needed to know about just how much he had minded her attention.

She slowly lowered herself down on him, savoring the delicious way he stretched her more and more with each of her downward movements. She closed her eyes as he gently gripped her hips once more after she had taken him all in, breathed in…and then started to rock her hips.

His hands contracted on her hips after just a few moments and, despite his earlier claims, he soon couldn’t resist thrusting upwards to meet her movements, their voices soon mingling into gasps and whispered praise as they fell into a rhythm that satisfied both of them.

Pleasure started to build inside her again as sweat started to pearl her forehead and upper lip, her hands moving to grip his pecs as she leaned forward to better chase her orgasm.

Pen didn’t beg, per se, but the way his hands tightened on her hips told her that he wanted her to go faster, and the way he looked at her through half-lidded eyes just screamed please…and Alyx happily complied with his unspoken request with a low groan of pleasure.

She closed her eyes as her head went soon blank with pleasure; Duvos, Howlett, Sandrock, and the future ceased to matter for the moment, the only thing she was able to care about was the way the man below her groaned out her name as he reached his peak inside her, the way his hot seed filled her as her walls clenched around him.

They remained there for a few moments, panting, as the remains of their shared pleasure receded and her rational thought slowly returned…and with it, the fears and doubts about their future. She wished, oh how much she wished, that they were just two lovers again, that their only worry right now could be only cuddling and falling asleep together.

It was no longer possible, not for now anyway.

She slowly got up from him, hastily getting a handkerchief out from one of her pockets to try to contain the mess that would otherwise spill on their clothes. They cleaned as much as they could in silence, each one of them lost in their own thoughts.

Dressing up after sex had never felt so final, she thought, but it didn’t have to be: he wouldn’t be executed, she reminded herself, he just had to face a probably lengthy sentence. She breathed in once she had put back her pants and shoes, then exhaled even slower as she turned again to face him. She forced a tender smile on her face before she walked to stand right in front of him as he sat again on the edge of the cot.

“I will visit you in prison. As often as I’m allowed. Write to you letters. You’ll get sick of me because of all the letters I’ll send to you.”

He moved his hand to caress her cheek, the one with her old scar, his calloused palm feeling somehow so delicate against her skin.

“I know you will, Skinny. But maybe they won’t give me prison…maybe they’ll settle with social services? Maybe I’ll just have to sweep the streets of Atara for five years straight or something equally unpleasant and ‘reeducative’.”

He moved his hand from her cheek to gently boop the tip of her nose, his smile failing to completely hide his sadness as he continued.

“Who knows…maybe they’ll even allow me to live with my beautiful and amazing girlfriend, wherever they send me.”

Any answer she tried to drag out through her increasingly constricting throat was interrupted by two sharp knocks resounding in the soundproof room. She turned just as the small opening on top of the door was opened a little, letting sounds from outside come in: in particular, Justice’s voice.

“Alyx, things are movin’. I heard them sayin’ somethin’ about makin’ Pen shower before Avery heard him again for his sentence. You’d better hightail now, technically your visitin’ hours ended quite a bit ago.”

Time was up. She sighed, looking towards Pen, but his answer was to offer her a smile that hid its shakiness rather well.

“You heard the Sheriff. Go, don’t get into more trouble for me.”

She supposed all they had to say and do had been said and done for now. 

“I…will see you as soon as possible, Pen. I promise.”

She looked at him nod and, before she could do something stupid like crying, she turned around to reach for the door. Before she could reach it, however, she heard him gasp, immediately followed by his hand darting forward to grab her wrist. She brusquely turned, her eyes widening as she saw something almost resembling panic on his features.

“Wait. Listen, I’ve just remembered. I…left something for you a long time ago. Remember the room in Paradise Lost where we ended our first date?”

She didn’t even try stopping the sardonic smile stretching her lips, despite the urgency of the situation.

“How could I ever forget it?”

Pen nodded, his expression growing even more serious as his fingers gripped her wrist harder for a second.

“If you…if you were to retrieve it and wear it, it would mean a lot to me. It’s not an engagement ring, but…”

He trailed off as Alyx suddenly realized what, whatever this item was, meant to him. Her eyes widened…it was not a ring, but it must have had the same value. A promise of a lifelong commitment.

“Oh.”

His hand slid down, his warm palm enveloping her hand as he looked at her straight in the eyes.

“It doesn’t matter what happens to me now, Alyx. I will keep counting the days I can kiss you again no matter how long my sentence is, I will always remember the light of your smile no matter how dark my cell is.”

He’d always had a flair for the dramatic, but in that moment Alyx didn’t have the heart to call him out for it. He squeezed her hand one last time, his smile so sad and yet so warm, before he let go.

“Go. Our time is over for now...but this is not the end. I promise.”

For the fourth time in less than five minutes, Pen pushed his head inside the bucket he had been given and vomited bile, the full horror of what he had just done hitting him fully. There was killing, even if it was against a poorly trained rebel who had no chances against him, and there was pointless and drawn-out cruelty.

His fellow squire looked as nauseous as he was feeling, his disheveled ponytail only adding to the effect. He rubbed his face with his hands, breathing in before commenting with a shaky voice: “That was fucked up, even for Bear.”

Pen instinctively tensed, almost like he was expecting his master to burst into the squire’s tent to skin them alive.

“Fuck, Aadit, don’t let them catch you say-”

That gained him a scoff, even if the other man was still recovering.

“Please, they’re too busy arguing in that tent to pay attention to us squires. Besides, Wasp is done with Bear and I’m pretty sure Lion dreams of stabbing out his eyes. If I said anything bad about Bear in front of them I’d just get a slap on the wrist to pretend they’re punishing me for disrespecting a superior.” 

He sighed, slumping on the bench he was sitting on as Pen tore himself, not without difficulty, away from the now filthy bucket.

“Just pray we get anointed before this rivalry involves you too, Pen.”

Pen scoffed, partly faked confidence entering his tone as he straightened his back.

“I killed the Valkyrie, Aadit. If that doesn’t earn me my title, I don’t know what will.”

That got a reaction out of Aadit alright.

“You killed WHO- ”

Aadit breathed in, pinching his nose for a few moments as shock receded into deep thought.

"Do you...do you think this was a way to punish you for stealing his thunder? Bear, I mean. Do you think it’s his way to make you pay?"

Pen’s mouth dried as he forced himself to reflect on those words. 

“...Bear is a sadistic bastard, but usually his cruelty has a purpose. You…you might be right.”

It made an awful lot of sense, now that he thought about it. Bear had wanted to gain an edge over Lion and Wasp for weeks, and what better way than to kill an enemy, traitorous Knight? True, he could still order Pen to keep his mouth shut and take credit for it anyway, but Bear would still know the truth, the blow to his pride had already been dealt.

Aadit was wrong on one point, however. Pen’s punishment was probably only a pretty side effect, as far as Bear was concerned: what had happened today had been a hit aimed at Lion and Wasp first and foremost.

Just a power struggle, he realized, just a way to make Lion and Wasp’s job harder. Just a way to claim that Bear’s action had been instrumental in breaking the rebels if they succeeded anyway, or that the other Knights were two incompetents who could not complete a mission if they didn’t.

He brusquely got up despite Aadit’s protests, exiting the tent and feeling the cold of Duvos’ late autumn seep into his bones to cool his mounting rage.

Just a power struggle . He had been just another pawn moved inside a giant chessboard…no matter how much suffering such a meaningless little move had caused.

He learned one lesson that day. A Knight survived on the battlefield thanks to their strength and thrived in Duvos thanks to their cunning and ruthlessness. He was done being just a survivor, he wanted to shine, finally reaching the top and living not only a decent life but a great one. He would learn to play the game and become as merciless as required to claw his way up, he decided as a light rain started to fall around him.

Nobody would ever use him as a pawn in their twisted games again. If he had to step on everyone else, if he had to become a monster to do so…well, so be it .

That was the day Pen, the squire, became a true duvosian Knight.

Avery watched the Knight in front of him sigh as he finished recounting the events of the last few days, relaxing in his chair as he closed his eyes. He looked…at peace. Serene, despite knowing the sword of his possible sentence suspended by a fine thread above his head.

For a second, Avery found himself watching the Knight with different eyes. The man in front of him had thrown himself completely into his self-imposed mission to save his loved one and, now that he had succeeded, he looked ready to face even death with little more than a sardonic smile. He knew of the single-minded focus Duvos instilled into its soldiers, but to see it applied to a noble cause for once…

“Well, that’s it. That’s my side of the story. Hope you don’t have further questions, because I don’t feel like answering them.”

…of course he had to ruin the moment. Avery had to resist the urge to snarl, instantly regretting his vaguely impressed thoughts.

“Are you always this insufferable?”

Pen shrugged.

“Pretty much.”

Be professional, Avery. Be professional, don’t shoot him.

Commander Avery pinched the bridge of his nose…but, he had to admit, his irritation was only partially due to the way this insufferable asshole was acting.

It sounded impossible to him, but this man, this monster…had been capable of loving another person selflessly, to genuinely choose the well-being of another person above his own. He found himself bitterly thinking that Pen could have shown even just a fraction of the same kindness and spared Tessa, or at the very least offered her a more dignified end. He was speaking again before he knew it.

“Is it true what they say about what you did in Mobius?”

The Knight’s expression instantly shifted, and Avery finally caught a glimpse of the man behind the mask, the cold duvosian officer behind the veneer of the charming idiot.

“...I didn’t think my reputation even reached the Alliance. Yes, I killed the Valkyrie of Mobius. I killed all those rebels. I would do it again and-”

He suddenly stopped, lowering his eyes as he moved one of his fingers to trail over one of the seams of his shirt.

“...no, I wouldn’t. I have turned my back on Duvos. No need for all that ‘for the good of the Empire’ shit rhetoric. I wouldn’t do it again, because I have no more reason to do it.”

Avery found himself gritting his teeth. The man in front of him seemed vaguely remorseful, but hadn’t even bothered to mention the worst he had done.

“The girl.”

Avery saw Pen instantly snap his eyes back to him, wide and unguarded. He saw surprise in them, then dread and pain all at once before settling into a dull recognition.

“...I thought you looked familiar somehow. Family, I’m guessing.”

Avery found himself clenching his fist, rage overcoming him, before he realized something. To say that, to recognize their similar physical traits, the Knight must have remembered how she looked, even after more than ten years had passed. Avery studied him with renewed attention as Pen closed his eyes, resignation washing over his features.

“Well, I’m fucked then, if you’re the one judging me. I guess karma is a stubborn bitch, to chase after me until now.” 

The Knight reopened his eyes as he finished his phrase, fixing him with an intense stare.

“What was her name?”

There was no mocking in these words, only something…solemn. Avery found himself answering.

“Tessa.”

The Knight nodded, the same serious expression holding for a few seconds before levity, even if obviously faked, returned to his features.

“Well then, Commander, do your worst. Will I be left hanging for long, or-”

“Ten years in jail.”

Avery saw his shoulder sag almost imperceptibly, but the smile Pen had forced on his face didn’t falter for a single second.

“Yeah, I guess that’s still better than I could have expected for-”

“Or, another option.”

He saw him immediately stop talking, the gears in his mind starting to turn frantically.

“...which is?”

Commander Avery thought, for a moment or two, that he was still in time to stop what he was doing. He could just pretend it was nothing and throw the man in front of him in jail for the longest time he could and pretend that this was enough to break even with Tessa’s death. But, perhaps unfortunately, Avery was a man of his word, even if the only person who could hold him accountable for his promises was himself. As much as he hated to admit it, perhaps there was a glimmer of humanity and a faint possibility of redemption for the man in front of him.

“I say that having you rot in a prison isn’t going to help anyone. I say that you should make something useful out of your life.”

He didn’t miss the calculating edge shining for a moment in the other man's eyes. The Knight slightly leaned forward, once again discarding the air-headed persona to focus with crushing intensity on him.

“You have my interest.”

Avery tapped a folder on the desk in front of him. The words 'Project Bulwark’ were printed on it in red letters.

“The Alliance is starting a project to reinforce Lucien’s position. A new town built south of Lucien and along some promising Old World sites we can study. Ready to assist when the next war starts.”

There was no need to mince words about Duvos’ intentions, he knew as well as the man in front of him that the Empire’s hunger for territories could never be sated. He saw the Knight nod for a moment, clearly appreciating the tactical benefits, before he realized what the problem of such a location was. His eyes widened in shock before he narrowed them.

“South of Lucien?! Are you crazy? You want a repeat of Doss?!”

Avery steepled his fingers together.

“Trust us, this was very well planned. The site for the city is near the Peripheries, yes, but the area is tamer than the one that housed Doss. We do not wish for that tragedy to happen again.”

He paused, his eyes skimming on the folder again.

“Besides, so far only handpicked personnel have been selected for the first phases of the project. No defenseless civilians risking their lives when the city hasn’t established a security perimeter.”

That seemed to tranquilize the Knight (another good sign, worrying about civilian life now that he had no more orders to kill them on sight).

“Hm. I guess I’d be there as muscle, to beat off nasties while you try to build.”

Accurate statement.

“More or less. A few other prisoners have also been offered the opportunity to burn their sentences through labor in this operation, and your status would be the same as theirs. You won't be allowed to leave the area without a permit and you’ll be guarded to prevent escape attempts, but I don’t believe you’d attempt such a thing, would you?”

A small guffaw escaped the Knight’s lips before he could stop himself.

“Escape? To find myself alone on the run, hunted both by the Alliance and Duvos? No, thank you. I am not suicidal.”

Commander Avery curtly nodded.

“Glad we understand each other. Of course, with that being said, you’ll have rights. If you get ill or injured, you’ll get treated and be left to recover for all the time the doctors deem necessary. You are allowed rest days. You’re allowed to have personal possessions, other than weapons of course…not that you need those anyway. And you’ll get a small compensation, like any prisoner working in our correctional facilities.”

The “of course you’ll have rights, we’re not in Duvos here” went unspoken, but neither of them commented on it. The Knight clicked his tongue, still clearly considering the pros and cons of Avery’s proposal.

“I guess there are worse kinds of forced labor. How much time?”

Avery had to stop and think about it for a few moments. General Ling had said that the maximum sentence he could give was seven years, right? Not much less than the maximum sentence he would get while picking time in jail and, at this point, he might as well make him want to pick this option.

“Five years.”

Pen immediately raised one eyebrow.

“That’s generous. Where’s the catch?”

Smart. There were, in fact, a few catches in this proposal.

“You’d be risking death or injury daily. We are talking about an untamed area next to the Peripheries, after all.”

“I said, where’s the catch?”

Of course, a duvosian Knight would scoff at the idea of injury or death. Avery’s smile grew a fraction sharper as he continued, knowing very, very well that his next point was going to be one of the few ways he could make the Knight suffer. It wouldn’t bring back Tessa, nothing would, and it was barely more than a slap on the wrist, but it was enough for now.

“Your contact with the external world will be limited. Any correspondence you’ll be allowed to write will be monitored. And any not-authorized citizen will not be allowed entry until the city is deemed safe for civilians.”

Pen, of course, understood the problem with that statement immediately, his mouth opening slightly as he realized what this option implied.

Isolation, partial or otherwise, from the outside world was, of course, standard procedure for a prisoner, but in this case? This man had readily sacrificed everything he had for a single woman, to spend his life with her out of the clutches of Duvos. Now, however, Avery was taking away the very thing he had fought so hard to have, even if only temporarily. 

He had hit him where it hurt the most, and Avery found a perhaps twisted sense of satisfaction in knowing that. He was quick to silence that thought, however: he was being fair, perhaps even too fair to a man who barely deserved it.

Besides, he wasn’t killing his beloved in front of his eyes, he was only forcing them to spend five years without seeing each other; it was hardly the end of the world. In fact, it was probably a good thing: the Knight was apparently still able to form genuine attachments to other people despite years of doing heinous and dehumanizing work for Duvos. Maybe, given enough time, he could be rehabilitated into a decent human being again, and, perhaps, removing his emotional crutch could help him do that faster.

Avery cleared his throat, keeping his expression neutral as the wind thrashed outside...probably as tumultuous as Pen's own emotions.

“I need your answer now.”

He saw the Knight breathe in deeply, closing his eyes for a moment as he debated his options. He reopened them with his exhale, a few seconds later, and his gaze was full of steely determination.

“Fine. You win. I accept your terms. I’m on board with this suicidal project of yours.”

It was, all in all, some kind of victory. Avery smirked.

“Very well, prisoner Pen. Project Bulwark is happy to have your contributions. We will depart as soon as this sandstorm calms down.”

Chapter Text

The wind howled that night, and Alyx’s simultaneously tired and hyperactive mind could have sworn it felt like it was screaming with a human voice. She should have tried to go to bed and rest, she knew that, but, instead, she had found herself stumbling in the direction of the Blue Moon, maybe to get one stiff drink (or two) or maybe just because she needed to gather her strength for the last stretch she needed to walk upwind to reach her home.

Owen had not let her drink anything that was even remotely strong enough for her tastes, but he had insisted he stayed the night in one of the rooms, “free of charge, of course”. He had used the excuse of the sandstorm raging outside, but of course, Alyx wasn’t stupid enough to not realize that the real reason was that he simply didn’t want her to be alone that night.

She had tried to sleep, but not even Pen’s faint scent that still lingered on her skin had managed to calm her down enough to yield to the Sandman’s demands. So, instead, she was now sitting at the counter next to Heidi (apparently pulling an all-nighter drafting projects for Sandrock’s repairs) and sharing a cup of tea with her and Grace, clearly as unable to sleep as Alyx was.

“You have no idea how much a good cup of tea can raise someone’s spirit,” the architect sighed, before putting down the now-empty cup. Alyx could only grimace in response.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Heidi gave her an aside glance.

“Oh, Alyx. Forgive me for bein’ blunt, but in your case, a cistern of the stuff wouldn’t likely be enough.”

Delivered with a different intonation one might have found that phrase to be an insult, but it was absolutely clear that Heidi meant it as gallows’ humor.

“No shit, Heidi.”

Heidi briefly stroked her upper back in an unspoken “hold up for us, girl” before getting up from the stool she had been sitting on.

“I’d better go. Give me a holler if y’all need me.”

Grace reminded her to be careful in the sandstorm, Heidi laughed and told her not to worry, she would return her finished work to Construction Junction and then she was going straight home. Then, like Heidi had never been there, only she and Grace remained, with the only other company of the angry winds outside.

They were silent for a while before Grace sighed, her gaze moving to the empty seats next to Alyx.

“I would have expected Mi-an and Elsie to be here with you.”

…As if. 

“You know better than me that I’m lucky if Elsie will talk to me without insulting me within the next decade.”

She didn’t mention Mi-an…and maybe it was for the better. The Tallsky Builder was now in the not-so-enviable position of being in the middle of a conflict between her two (former?) best friends and, as much Alyx found herself to be hurt by her absence, she couldn’t really blame her for wanting to stay out of it until the worst had passed.

Grace looked at her, the sharpness of her gaze making it clear that she was studying Alyx’s expression.

“You sound like you don’t blame her.”

Elsie had idolized Howlett: reading one of the books the old monster hunter had written had made her want to dedicate herself to understanding and dealing with monsters and critters, as non-violently as possible. Howlett had changed her life, and now Elsie had just discovered that he had been murdered , by someone Alyx had chosen to defend even after knowing the truth.

But it wasn’t just Elsie. Howlett had been a respected, loved citizen of Sandrock and she had very little doubts that almost everyone would have traded his life with Pen’s in a heartbeat.

“I know what I choose. And I know people aren’t going to pat me on the back for it any time soon. In fact, I’m still wondering why you are here, Grace.”

While Grace was as much of an outsider as Alyx was and had no attachment to Howlett, she had plenty of other reasons to want to see Pen rot in prison for life.

“Owen insisted you didn’t spend the night alone,” Grace said before shrugging. It was a non-answer and Alyx briefly narrowed her eyes.

“Exactly. Owen did. You could have hightailed the second Heidi left.”

The waitress-slash-spy studied her for a few seconds, clearly debating what to say next before sighing softly.

“Remember when we were going through Pen’s stuff after interrogating him, and I asked you what you saw in him?”

It was a rhetorical question because of course Alyx remembered and Grace wasn’t expecting to receive an answer anyway. She continued after a moment, her tone lowering.

“I don’t think I’m really supposed to talk about it, but a good part of my spy training was dedicated to learning how to deal with Duvos.”

She drummed on the counter with her hands, clearly thinking about what she was allowed to say.

“Some of what you hear about Duvos is propaganda, but some is completely true.”

Alyx felt her mouth go dry at her tone. Maybe Grace could understand, maybe she already knew .

“They experimented on him, Grace. Probably since he was a very young teen.”

Grace did not react with shock or disbelief…just a weary sigh that spoke louder than any word.

“I know. Kids being used like guinea pigs, then being brainwashed into believing that whatever fucked up shit they inflicted on them was not only worth it but a mark of honor. Makes me sick .”

The blonde woman paused, her hand drumming on the wooden counter again.

“You don’t climb the ranks unless you are ruthless, capable...and completely loyal, or at least willing to do what Duvos demands without batting an eye and completely unwilling to stab them in the back, even if you don’t buy the patriotic propaganda.”

She moved one finger to trace the edge of her now empty teacup, her eyes distant.

“The ACI has managed to get a few of the rabble to switch sides in the past and give us info, but the more you go up, the more they are likely to just laugh in your face if you try. After all, nothing we could do to them is worse than what Duvos would do to them or their families if they defected. Nothing we could do is worse than what Duvos has already inflicted on them.”

She stopped, suddenly raising her eyes to look straight at Alyx.

“Pen had no reason to switch sides. Everything I know about Duvos told me that it was impossible…really, a Knight defecting? A Knight defecting when they were winning, as far as he knew. They probably would have escaped with those engines had no one intervened. The Alliance would have not arrived in time without the delay we managed to inflict on them.”

It was a stark reminder of what they had risked, and Alyx couldn’t help but feel a shiver run down her spine. If not for their effort, Duvos would have won . Grace stopped, breathed in, and then looked at Alyx straight in the eyes.

“And yet, he did. He betrayed Duvos. Everything I knew suggested it was impossible, but he did it anyway.”

She shook her head briefly.

“Don’t get me wrong, I managed to sneak a look at his dossier yesterday. It made my skin crawl. But…I don’t think anyone else in this town truly realizes how unbelievable what he did is. No one realizes the magnitude of his sacrifice.”

Her gaze softened, a small smile curving her lips.

“And the only reason he could have to do so was you . So, now I know what you see in him: a man that, despite his past, was so deeply in love, so deeply devoted, that made a sacrifice possibly worse than just death for your sake.”

Her heart skipped a beat, emotion threatening to overwhelm her tired mind for a moment. To hear what Pen had done described that way…it made her chest feel lighter. Someone understood, someone wasn’t judging her for defending “a damn war criminal”. Still, she tried to not break down completely in front of her friend, instead going for light sarcasm.

“I wouldn’t have taken you for a romantic, Grace.”

Grace’s smile became a grin before she answered, “I’m not, usually. I guess even my tough spy heart melts, sometimes.”

Alyx hummed before a question formed in her mind.

“You told Owen about all this?”

Grace seemed taken aback by that.

“Hm? No. This is all very sensitive stuff, I’m already making a big exception by sharing with you.” 

Then why…? 

“Owen is a hopeless romantic,” Grace continued, sensing her question, “and always rooted for you two. I don’t doubt that he’s hurting, knowing it was Pen who killed Howlett, but the ‘grand sacrifice for love’ angle definitely softens him up. Even if he doesn’t know all the details. Makes him want to support you , at the very least, even if he’s maybe not ready to forgive Pen yet.”

It was far more than she could ask for, at the moment: at least two people that wouldn’t turn their backs on her. It would make everything far more bearable, going forward knowing not everyone was condemning her.

She was about to answer, to at least thank Grace for…everything, she guessed, when she heard the door of the Blue Moon open. She turned brusquely, wondering who would be still around at this hour in a late sandstorm night, only to see the small shape of Mayor Trudy stumbling inside.

The woman quickly closed the door behind her before the wind could pile too much sand inside, then moved next to them and removed her head covering to speak.

“Oh, Alyx, thank goodness I met Heidi on my way who told me you were here, I was going straight to your house!”

Alyx’s mouth immediately dried up.

“They decided his sentence, didn’t they.”

It wasn’t even a question. Trudy nodded, her expression solemn.

“The Alliance has decided for him to work on…some project, everyone was extremely tight-lipped about it. It probably counts as community service.”

Something in Alyx started to hope at those words. If they had allowed him to work for the good of the Alliance and its people, it meant they had decided he wasn’t an irredeemable monster. Maybe she had managed to get through Commander Avery after all.

Either way, it was good news! Maybe she could arrange to go live where he was stationed, as far as she knew prisoners on community service were guarded, of course, but they were allowed to interact with people more than their prison counterparts.

Still, it was probably too early to rejoice. She nodded, asking another question she dreaded. 

“How long?”

“Five years.”

She felt like a weight had been lifted from her, at first. Five years, only five years, and he wouldn’t be thrown behind bars in Atara’s maximum security prison! It was better than she could have ever hoped! Five years was basically nothing for all Pen had done!

But then she noticed Trudy wasn’t smiling at all and her joy turned into suspicion, heavy as lead. The older woman sighed before continuing.

“You have to understand, it’s a very top-secret project. As I said, they didn’t bother to let me know more: where he is going, what he’s doing. But they told me…only selected individuals are allowed to interact with this project.”

She didn’t take long to understand what Trudy was implying.

“I…I won’t be allowed to see him for…five years!?”

She couldn’t help but think that, if he had been imprisoned in Atara, she could have at least visited him whenever she had been allowed! This separation was even harsher! It was, on paper, an exceedingly generous sentence that however hit them where it hurt the most. She guessed Commander Avery had managed to get his revenge, one way or another.

Trudy must have sensed her turmoil, because she tried to smile, even if it didn’t reach her eyes.

“I’m sure eventually visits can be arranged, and correspondence will surely be possible, but…no. For now, you won’t be allowed to see him.”

Her tired mind and body just wanted to break down and cry, but her pride would never allow her. She kept her head high as she asked, “Will I be allowed to say goodbye to him?”

Trudy seemed to reflect on it for a few moments, but then she nodded.

“I don’t see why not. They will depart tomorrow morning, as soon as this sandstorm has stopped, but I don’t think Commander Avery would forbid you from saying a few words to him.”

Tomorrow morning. 

It was dramatically little time, only a night separating her from five years of separation…and suddenly, an idea formed in her mind. Something she had to do before they could depart. She had no time.

She brusquely got up from her stool, calculating everything she needed even as she started to walk towards the exit.

“Alyx, please wait-”

She turned towards the Mayor, offering her a smile.

“I’m sorry, Trudy, I need to do something.”

That did not reassure the other woman in the slightest.

“Alyx! It’s the dead of the night and there’s a sandstorm outside, don’t do anything reckless!”

Alyx was not in the mood (or had the time to) offer a proper explanation, so she just shook her head.

“I need to. Don’t worry, I’m not going to attempt a jailbreak or anything. I won’t interfere with the Alliance’s sentence.”

Trudy seemed to lose her cool after that, raising her hands in the air in evident frustration.

“I wasn’t worried about that!”

Grace, so far still and silent, quickly turned around the counter to stand next to Trudy.

“Alyx, I realize this is sudden, but you have to stop and reflect! Do you think Pen would like to see you getting hurt or worse? No matter the reason?”

Alyx stopped, sighing quietly, before turning towards the two women. She was dead serious when she spoke.

“Trudy. Grace. I thank you for all you did for me, and for your concern. I promise I will be careful, but I need to go. Now.”

They seemed to be taken aback by her tone: the one in front of them wasn’t a desperate woman about to do something stupid. It was a woman with a plan . Trudy exchanged a look with Grace, then turned again towards the Builder and nodded.

“...Okay. Don’t make us worry, Alyx.”

Alyx smiled, before pulling up her face covering.

“I won’t. See you tomorrow morning!”

Pen did not sleep a single wink in the entire night, of course. He had learned to enjoy sandstorms lately, as he had found out Skinny was usually in a cuddly mood during them…but right now, alone in a cold cell, it only served to highlight just how hard losing what had made him unexpectedly happy would be.

He kept repeating to himself that five years were nothing in the great scheme of things, he would be a free man with still most of his life yet to live and he wouldn’t be forced to waste away in a dimly lit cell, but doubts were already starting to gnaw at him.

Five years away from her could change everything. She was stubborn and kept insisting she would stay with him, but even she had her limits. What if the pressure to not tie herself to a murderer and traitor became too much to bear, what if she met someone new and decided a washed-up Knight wasn’t her best option, what if she plain lost interest?

It also didn’t help that he was scheduled to depart as soon as possible, with no possibility of speaking to her again before the point of no return. No explaining that he had only chosen this because the alternative was a sentence that was double the length of this one, even when his choice meant a long separation, or even just plain saying goodbye as she deserved.

The only thing he could do was replay in his head their last encounter, adding and discarding phrases from the real conversation they had, like he was trying to find a perfect mixture that would make this, any of this, okay, and always ending with her straddling his lap and looking at him with eyes full of love and desire.

He knew it was futile. Past could not be changed, and nothing was going to make this any easier…but, on the other hand, he knew he would not sleep either way, and replaying the way her hips had swayed while riding him was an excellent way to pass the time.

His lack of sleep also allowed him to gauge the strength of the winds outside. The room he was in had a small window, letting him hear the full wrath of the sandstorm as it rended the air outside before ebbing. And, as the winds gradually died down, he started to see the first radiance of the new day filter from the window…morning, he realized with a point of distress. Dawn of his final day in Sandrock…hah, he couldn’t help but think, this mission had certainly not gone as he would have expected. He had thought he would become a victorious hero, rich and beloved in all of Duvos…and, instead, what he had got out of it were bonds he would have never expected to make. Maybe, just maybe…he would miss this dusty hole of a town.

Any further musing was interrupted as the door opened and an Alliance soldier entered. He gave one look at Pen, realizing that he was already awake before he barked: “Up, prisoner. Your departure is scheduled in an hour.”

If Pen had learned something during his training years it was that, when faced with something unpleasant, it was better to do it as soon as possible because it certainly wasn’t going away on its own and, if nothing else, dragging his feet would only get him further punishment and even more unpleasant orders to follow as retribution.

So he just groaned, pushed himself out of the cot, and resigned himself to what was about to happen. The soldier brought him to a bathroom to relieve and wash himself and that was the extent of the luxury he was being granted. He was promptly handcuffed and dragged away after that, which was ridiculous if you asked him because really, were they expecting him to run away? As he had already told the Commander that had taken his confession, the second he removed himself from the Alliance’s protection he was a dead man.

But, instead of protesting, he decided to keep his mouth shut and allowed the soldier to drag him in front of the Alliance Commander…Albert? No, damn it, that wasn’t his name. Anyway, they dragged him in front of the blonde officer again, who gave him a somewhat cold look (still an improvement compared to the absolute hate he had received from him before), then spoke.

“We’re about to depart. I notified Mayor Trudy, if someone wishes to say goodbye to you they will be there.”

Relief flooded Pen: at least he wouldn’t be brought away while the city slept. He didn’t care if half of Sandrock gathered there to throw stones at him, as long as he had the opportunity to see Skinny one last time it was worth it.

So, he walked with his shoulders squared and his head held high under the pristine blue sky that always followed a sandstorm. He was led forward towards the liftoff site…which, turns out, was an area of the Ranch. He noticed a few people already assembled there: Burgess stood out with his bright yellow Church of Light jacket and the obnoxious way he waved when he saw Pen look at him…annoying as usual, but Pen guessed he would miss the Church boy somehow. He noticed Mayor Trudy, the spy, and the Civil Corps…but it was who was missing that froze him.

He instinctively stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes going wide as he desperately looked again at the people assembled there, hoping against all reason that he was just tired and he had missed her…but no, cold reality crashed down on him as he realized that Alyx simply wasn’t there.

The soldier that was next to him pushed him forward, but Pen barely registered him.

She wasn’t there. Maybe…maybe the Mayor hadn’t managed to tell her, maybe…maybe she just had fallen asleep and was a little late, or maybe…

No.

He had to face the truth. Alyx wasn’t there because she had decided not to. He almost wanted to laugh, pain constricting his lungs as he let out a shaky scoff. How stupid of him to worry that she would get tired of him in the following five years when she had already given up on him the very day of his departure.

He couldn’t really blame her, he bitterly mused as he was led towards the small airship in front of him, for once she had decided to do the smart thing instead of being heroic or self-sacrificing.

The Knight inside him, so far silent and defeated, laughed at him, mocking him for choosing to throw away his loyalty and everything he could have had for her. She loved you when it was easy and used you to escape a bad situation, the voice said as it felt like a million icy daggers were piercing his heart, but now she doesn’t need you anymore. What did you expect, you moron? Unconditional love? You’re worth nothing outside of your purpose, and you threw that away.

It was too late to turn back now. He had made his bed, and now it was time to lay in it. He closed his suddenly burning eyes for a moment as he stepped on the ramp leading to the airship, his teeth grinding against each other.

“PEN!”

He jolted as any thought he was having suddenly dissolved into nothing. He brusquely turned towards the shout, his eyes locking on the woman running towards them.

A few of the soldiers around them tensed and reached for their weapons, but a quick gesture from the Commander at his side made them relax. Skinny stopped as close as she could to the makeshift lift-off area without being blown away by the air moved by the engines, and even from the distance he didn’t miss the way her chest was heaving. Their gazes locked for a moment, a single moment that seemed to stretch to infinity…and then she raised her right arm.

The morning sun caught the metal bracelet she was wearing, and Pen couldn’t help but laugh, a relieved and a bit unhinged laugh as he recognized the familiar shape of the Protector. 

If you were to retrieve it and wear it, it would mean a lot to me. It’s not an engagement ring, but…

The weight that had threatened to crush his chest instantly dissolved, as every doubt that had begun to fester in the darkest recesses of his mind was blown away by the blinding light reflected on that bracelet. She not only had not given up on him, but she had braved a sandstorm and a Ruin while probably sleep-deprived just to show him without any single doubt that she was accepting his promise, his pledge to her.

It was such a Skinny thing to do, reckless and brave and fuck, he loved her so much for it even if she had almost made him die of heartbreak.

He grinned like a madman, turning as much as the soldier leading him allowed to so he could look at her.

“Wait for me, babe! When I return, I will sweep you off your feet and make you the happiest bride in history! I love you, Alyx!” he shouted, before bringing two fingers to his lips and extending them towards her, as much as the cuffs he was wearing allowed him to. He winked as well, offering her his best shit-eating grin even as Commander…uh…Avery? Oh, yeah, that was it! Commander Avery scoffed.

“Come on, we get it, you love her. Enter the plane before you give us all diabetes.”

A weight settled in his stomach, the weight of the years in front of him threatening to crush him. But he was a Knight, and he would not let something as small as a temporary separation disrupt his nonchalant façade. Not when he knew showing sadness or weakness would make this harder for his Skinny as well.

He gave one last look at Alyx, his grin softening in a gentle smile as he memorized the way she looked, bathed in the morning light with his gift and with his promise adorning her wrist, and then turned to enter the dark space in front of him.

Hera breathed in and out. In and out, in and out, in and out -

“Honey, lean on me, you’re hyperventilating-”

She felt the hands of her husband gently grasp her shoulders, and maybe she should have been ashamed of herself, she had served as a nurse on the frontlines and was trained to manage panic and stress, but-

“Rowan, my baby -”

Rowan pushed her against him, hugging her as she started to tremble. She felt his hands gently circle her back as he started to speak, his tone calm and collected as usual.

“Calm down, Hera. This official communication said no Sandrocker was harmed, and they would have surely told us if something had happened to Alyx.”

In fact, the official communication (the sheets now spread on the floor after they had slipped her trembling hands) specifically commended Alyx, showing her photo along with a few others who had distinguished themselves during the invasion. It had given her a mild heart attack, to think that her little girl had been anywhere near a battlefield and, as much as she could kid herself and try to convince herself that Alyx had been involved only with building defenses, she knew her daughter well enough to know that she had been among the ones fighting.

“But Duvos-”

“Hera. They said they were after a Ruin and the Relics in it, and I think that makes sense. Do you think they would send a small army to take Alyx? Really?”

He was right, of course. Her baby was the light of her life, of course, but she was hardly worth a military incursion. 

“...no. Of course not.”

Rowan sighed, before continuing with a careful, almost too careful, tone. He had read the communication before bringing it to her, and something told her he knew something that she didn’t.

Turns out, she was right.

“It also said one of the officers leading the mission defected.”

Hera’s breath caught in her throat, but she pushed down any sensation threatening to overwhelm her again.

“I see.”

Rowan was silent for a bit, one of his usual thoughtful silences that meant he was reflecting on something important. Then, suddenly, he nodded.

“You should go as soon as the trains for Sandrock start to depart again. Find out for yourself if Alyx is fine and understand exactly what happened.”

Hera nodded back, because of course she wanted to know how her girl was doing and see if she was really unharmed, but soon the wording of the phrase caught her attention.

“...you should? You…you’re not coming?”

He shook his head.

“It’s something you should do alone if…you know.”

Something in his demeanor made her heart clench. She put a hand over his arm, squeezing gently.

“Rowan. You know I love you, right?”

The way his eyes sparkled told her he was amused at the idea she had thought to specify that. His calloused hand covered hers, and then he moved it to plant a gentle kiss on her palm, his mustache tickling the sensitive skin. Then, he answered.

“I know. I never doubted it. But this isn’t about me. It’s about Alyx, and you. You tell her I love her and that I am proud of her. Anything else, it’s between you two. I will visit her with you once things have calmed down.”

Alyx had never felt guiltier in her entire, admittedly so far short, life.

Sitting with her chin leaning on her bent knees, she strained her ears to try and hear whatever was being said in the Principal’s office behind her, jumping out of her skin every time she recognized particular words or phrases. Like, ‘she broke his nose like it was made of clay’.

She wasn’t a stranger to bullying and reacting to that, but this time she had probably gone too far, she thought bitterly while trying to shrink even more on the uncomfortable chair. 

At first, when she was very little, other children liked her white hair. All the other girls wanted to touch, braid, and put flowers in it! But then, as she got older, something shifted and no one wanted to braid her hair and play with her anymore. She’d lost count of how many times she’d returned home crying because someone pulled her hair or called her names. Freak was their favorite insult, but they also shouted bad things about her parents, like that her dad had only married her mom out of pity. It was completely poo, of course, Da and Ma loved each other very much, but it still hurt to hear that lie.

Anyway, Ma always put her in her lap and gave her kisses until she stopped crying, and then Alyx clung to her as her mom consoled her.

“They’re jealous because you look like the Moon Princess, you know? When she wants to go around without being recognized, she turns into a white bunny with red eyes. Just like you!”

Six years old Alyx had been delighted, and had in fact retold that incredible fact the next time a kid had called a freak to her face. All she got was them laughing to her face and mocking her for still believing these stupid fairytales. 

That was the first time she had snapped. Her body was admittedly very small, so she supposed it was easy to fill it with anger. She remembered seeing red, stepping forward, and then punching the stupid poo-poo head in the stomach with all the strength she had. It had been strong enough to make them vomit their breakfast and, turns out, had simultaneously ended most overt bullying and most of what remained of her already limited social life. After that show, she was not only a freak, but a dangerous one…no one wanted to deal with her.

…except for one single person.

“Hi! I’ve heard you punched Sammy. You did good! They were a real -” the small blonde girl said to her during one recess, then quickly looked around to check if anyone was around before continuing with the bad word she had been clearly forbidden to say, “- ass . I’m Nia, by the way! Want to be friends?”

Nia was a year younger than she was; for some reason, her parents had decided she should start elementary school earlier. She was small and blonde, and had a weird fixation with plants and she was the best friend Alyx could ever wish for. They played together, did homework together, and explored together. They were basically joined at the hip, they were going to be best friends forever!

She didn’t care if the other kids called her a freak. Nia liked her and Nia was smarter and funnier than any of them, and she was all Alyx needed.

That day Nia had been late during recess. Alyx had waited for a few minutes, then had gone and searched for her…and her blood froze once she found her in a secluded corner of the garden they spent their recess in. One kid was holding down Nia, another was smearing mud on her face, and hair, and a third was ripping all her favorite books, the one with all the pretty illustrated flowers, and stomping on the pages.

She remembered seeing Nia cry, and then everything went red.

Angry didn’t even begin to express how much fury she had felt. It was like her body was on fire, like something inside her was clawing to get out, and like her blood had been bubbling. Her thoughts and memories were confused, but she remembered snarling, then running forward and tackling to the ground the one ripping the book.

Her body acted on her own when the other two tried to restrain her, planting one foot in the stomach of one and a punch in the face of the second.

She vaguely remembered hearing a crunching sound, and then she heard screaming and she had blood on her hands and a teacher was holding her back as she kept snarling and Nia was crying and-

“My daughter and her friend get bullied, and this is her fault?!”

Her Ma’s voice brought her back to reality. She sounded…angry.

“Bullying is a serious matter and will not be tolerated, no. But your daughter essentially assaulted those kids. And to make matters worse, she’s stronger than most girls her age. Stronger than most boys her age, even. If she doesn’t learn to use her strength responsibly, she might end up seriously injuring someone.”

She shrank at these words. She had never really wanted to hurt anyone before this…but the idea they were bullying Nia had set her off, she would have bit them had they tried to touch her friend again, she would have twisted their arms until they came off and-

“I could recommend finding a martial arts teacher. That would get her to burn excess energy while making her learn how-”

…she was being bad and having bad thoughts again, she realized with a start as her Ma shouted.

“MY DAUGHTER WILL NOT BE ANYWHERE NEAR VIOLENCE!”

She could hear shuffling, probably Da going to calm down Ma.

It was her fault. It was all her fault. She was a bad person and maybe they were right when they called her a freak.

Alyx just buried her head into her knees and sobbed.