Flight on Torn Wings

HYOGA:

As easy as it is to accept reality, to embrace the factual things in life over those that whisper nonsense in our hearts, if this fragile realm of the inconstant were to crumble we, in turn, would fall. Reality is more than the world we can see and touch, it is the lies we give and take in order to hide the deeper truths of what we are, what we want and what we should become. In time, however, reality becomes more tangible to us than the truth we sought to hide, and when our little net of lies wavers so do we.

It's cold here and the wind thunders in my ears, deafening... numbing. If I had feathers surely they would all be strewn accross the skies by now, perhaps after all this time I won't even have blood to stain the streets with. Perhaps I've lost myself so completely that I'll bleed only water.... yet this weight, this grip that I feel around me... its too impossible to be real! Not here, not while I'm falling into my own destruction. I opened my eyes, caught in those stretched out seconds that are each in itself a piece of eternity, and while the flashing lights of cars below me did seem to be getting closer, they were also being woven out of existance. As the very fabric of reality twisted and roiled, these....arms?... that held me seemed to tighten while the world turned black.

I did not close my eyes... yet the lights were gone. The wind... it still howled in my ears, it still called out to me as the voices of a thousand ghosts would, still urging me to fly....

Time snaped back into rhythm, the world spiraled into being once again, as the floor arched up to meet me I saw that there were no lights, that it was much closer than it should have been, that indeed there were arms holding me, pulling me sideways as someone took the brunt of the fall for both of us.

Distantly I heard myself cry out as the impact jarred us both, the pain threatening to swallow me back down. But the wind had stopped howling and I was breathing... breathing...

Alive.

MILO:

I didn't really think it over. I rarely do think things over of the late, but if my reactions were to speak for my emotions then maybe there was more than mere duty to this madness. I had jumped over the bridge as soon as I saw him plunge, I feared for a moment I would not be able to catch him, but I had, jerking him as we fell and I summoned my cosmo, willing it to take us anywhere, anyhow, away from the screaming cars that rushed up to meet us.

Only instants later - or was it the aeons I felt them to be?- we were falling into a grassy expanse, much closer to the ground than before and so, much less fatal. I spun him so that I would take the shock of the fall but still he cried out, or was that my voice after all? I shivered against the cold damp grass and felt him shaking in my arms, whether from the cold or the pain I did not know nor did I particularly care right then. We were alive.

Both of us.

I opened my eyes again looked up at the starry sky, cold air touched my forehead as a vague breeze rustled the grass we lay on. I realised I was gasping for breath. That I had been afraid. But not of dying. Never of dying. I had been afraid of...

Hyoga shuddered convulsively and sighed raggedly, using his arms to try and pull himself away, trying to prop himself up on his knees. He was too weak and tired, and very possibly too shocked to get his body to respond, yet I could feel in his aura the beginnings of confusion and despair, and realisation of the truth. He moved off me and I felt the odd feverish heat of his skin, his uneven breathing the only sound in the permeating silence of the night.

"Wha...what....?" his cheek pressed agains the cool grass he struggled to speak. It took me a moment to realise he might not even be aware that I was here, or that it was me for that matter. "Whe..re....?"

I rose to a sitting position, wincing as I felt my back protest, and I probably had a fractured arm as well by the feel of it. Reaching out I touched his face, confirming my earlier suspicions about him running a fever. He jerked slightly and his eyes rolled dazedly in my direction, too unfocused to make me out clearly.

For no apparent reason, I suddenly wanted to cry. I wanted to curl up somewhere and cry myself silly: alone. But even more than that, I wanted to scream or hit something or grab Hyoga and demand that he explain to me why he had done this... even when I understood it all too well. Even when I had once tried to do it myself. Back then Camus had saved me, he had caught my arm in the last minute, pulling me back up. For a moment his eyes had seemed to cry at me, to plead.... stay. Stay with me. And now? Was it some kind of ironic metaphor that I had not been able to catch Hyoga, and that we had both ended up hitting the ground together? Was that what this was? We certainly could not fall much further than this.

The cliff that thrived in my dreams, the cliff that thrived in his...were they the same one? The same pain, the same anguish and the same desire to die? For the same reasons?

"It's me Hyoga, Milo," I murmured, running a finger over his forehead. He shivered and struggled to focus his eyes on me, his breathing quickened for a moment.

"Milo...why?" he squinted up at me, beseechingly. Very much like he had stared down on me from his perch on the bridge rail, before plunging into darkness. Why what? Why did I save him? Why did I jump too? Why did I even bother myself to do it? Or why did I even care? Why what?

Why this?

Why me and no someone else?

Or perhaps... why him?

"Because.... I wanted to." His eyes widened, the black expanse of his pupils engulfing me in their torrid silence. Was that the right answer in the end? I had, for as long as I could remember, always acted on my whims. Had saving him been another of those? Was it what I truly wanted?

Maybe Camus could have answered that, maybe he could have told me if each time he saved me, he did it out of duty, friendship, or simply because saving me was the only way he knew of saving himself.

Of...saving... the only thing that he had.

"That's...s-stupid..." he shivered and closed his eyes, a spasm of pain made him bite his lip. I stared down at him, feeling the cold grass and the humidity soaking my clothes and his. A soft breeze made temperature drop even lower.

"You bloody fool....." I murmured, echoing Camus's words to me all those years ago, echoing the desolate pain in his voice as he struggled to be indiferent to life and failed, because he cared for me. Because I could not de indiferent to live, life hurt me where it could not hurt him. The only anchor he had was the one I gave him... because by forcing me to live he did not have to face up to the truth of his own soul. But Hyoga... Hyoga had made him care, had made him cry, had made him suffer and love and finally....die. And now, just like Camus had needed me, I needed...this....child.

"W-what... diference does-s.. it m-make..." he gasped, the pain making him jump, and turned to face me fully, his forehead resting against the cold grass. "...t-to you?"

"That you need me... and, whether I want it or not, I need you." Something flickered in his eyes, a spark of some violent and virulent emotion, a darkness that I could almost feel as he was torn between the beginnings of hope and the urge to disbelieve, to mistrust. To let go.

"... need?" he chuckled hoarsely, the low sound ending in a rough coughing fit that left him shuddering and only vaguely conscious. "...don't...be...stu --" his eyes rolled back into his skull and he fainted before completing the sentence. I shivered again, reaching out to touch his matted hair.

"I'm not. It's the truth." But he couldn't have heard me anyway. I wasn't even sure why I had said it.

I picked myself up wincing as each movement revealed a new bruise the fall had earned me,and once I was steady enough on my feet I bent down to lift Hyoga's limp body in my arms. He was lighter than I remembered... but then again, when I had last held him - the day Saga died - he had been wearing his cloth. On that day I might not have cared if he had weighed twice as much. Pain would have been welcome, anything physical would have been welcome. Like my arm, that ached mightly right now, as I held him. We were, effectively, back were we had started. Both of us.

He felt strangely vulnerable in my arms, as if I were holding something easily broken. A war meant for gods could not harm him, but mere loneliness could tear his soul appart. Without our cloths separating our skin I could feel the warmth he gave off and his fluttering pulse was all the more clear, all the more halting. A body that struggled to live even when the mind struggled to die... what was stronger? Instinct or despair?

The harsh wind chafed his and my cheeks, bitter and biting like frost, making us shiver. I let out a short dizzied laugh at the ridiculous outcome this war had lead us into; at the incongrous reality of my leaping after him as he jumped off a cliff. No... a bridge. The cliff had been my stunt after all. I laughed a bit louder, the cold seeping into my very bones to the point it numbed my fractured arm even though I held the weight of another body in my arms. Laughing seemed like the only thing I could do, because crying was too easy, and all the same, much too hard. The world blurred around me and I could not tell for sure if it was because I was crying or because the wind had hurt my eyes. Everything seemed to be out of focus, the very reason I was here seemed momentarily meaningless. Here I was, saving Camus' child, just like Camus had once saved me, and I was here because I had never been able to save Camus from anything! Yet this child in my arms reminded me more of myself than of him, so I was back to saving myself... was this what Camus felt like?

Athena knew I had asked myself that question far too often in the past few days, and still....

Was this how he felt each time he saved me? This hollow need to be held even though all you could do was hold someone else? A dark chasm opening inside of you, blurring out the edges of everything, until all that was left was what little warmth your pity could grant to someone else? God...

Help me... someone...

Anyone...

Hyoga's body was so warm it was surely the fever, he was an ice saint after all. Deep down he might just be as cold as Camus' corpse, or Saga's. Just like Saga, only Saga had smiled in his death, had given me one last parting word. And you, Camus? You didn't say anything, you just closed your eyes and let it all turn out as the gods would have it, and now I have to save this child...

Distantly I could hear myself laughing, I could also hear Hyoga's ragged breathing and the unsteady thrum of his aura, so... startlingly... warm. Not cold, not hot either, a gentle white fire that could surely be as passionate as Camus had never been. So small and warm, so feeble. Straining to hang on when the rational pull had given up. So terrifyingly similar to me... I did not know if this was what Camus had felt, but I knew how I had felt when I tried to kill myself. Dying had been first and foremost, because nothing mattered. Because no one cared. No, that wasn't it. I had wanted to die because the one person who should have cared didn't give a damn about me. The right people cared not. The laughter stopped coming and I found it was hard to breathe, hard to even think as a thick mist wrapped around my mind, a dull pain that did not want to think about. Not now.

Not now.

Gathering my wits together I summoned up what little power I could with such a frayed concentration, barely enough to get us back to where he should be. Darkness clouded my vision and I supressed the urge to run the moment I felt reality swoon beneath my feet like a bubble about to explode. I closed my eyes and clutched his body tighter against mine, staving off the fear and the confusion and the need to be reassured. Athena, how pathetic could I be if I needed to be coddled now?

The world churned out of existance. I concentrated on one point, one place, feeling the irrational instinct to take us out of reality but not back into it. To disappear before the world did us that favour in a much harsher fashion. Darkness stretched on for an eternity, cold and cloying and unbreathable, I opened my eyes and almost cried out, before my feet hit solid concrete and I almost fell forward on top of Hyoga. A twisted smile crept up to my lips and I looked up to find I had brought us both to the back entrance of the hospital where we had started off in the first place.

The ground felt deceptively real, even if the world still felt like it was spinning. My knees felt as if they were made of water and I had to bite my tongue to remind myself to stay awake, to tell someone that we were here....

The questioning stroke of Mu's aura against mine irritated me, but that though was far too meaningless now. I didn't even bother to respond, I didn't know if I could. He must have realised I was here however, and his insistent probing dizzied me, making the shadows of before curl out between the buildings and the floor like distended tentacles of some dream-monster. Athena, what was wrong with me?

"Milo...!" I looked up to see Athena dashing out, pushing appart the heavy glass doors as she rushed up to meet us, hair dancing in the wind as her layered skirts flared behind her. A group of doctors followed suit agitatedly, but that too, was meaningless. I stared up at her, feeling oddly detached as the blurred outlines around me swirled madly for a moment, when I looked down Hyoga was still in my arms. He became something... constant. A constant in my life. It was madness!

The doctors were yelling something at me, trying to get me to let go of him? I tried to pull away, afraid of relinquishing the only little bit of warmth I had right then, feeling rationality elude me as I shook my head and held on faster.

Athena touched my arm, murmuring entreaties. I shook my head, breath becoming short and harder as the voices became dim and almost metallic.

Mu's voice was strong enough to snap me back into my senses, just enough to allow to doctors to take Hyoga away, just enough to remind me who I was and where I was before the darkness swallowed me up for good.

MU:

"Is he... all right?"

I turned my head slightly and smiled at Athena as she made her way up to me. Her delicate brows were drawn into an anxious little frown that made her look far too old to be pretty. There was something vaguely repelling about the murky darkness that dulled her eyes, as if this was all to familiar. Familiar enough to be meaningless, and yet... it still hurt.

"He's fine. Just...well, he does have a fractured arm and a few bruises, but it's mostly just emotional stress catching up to him. Despite his bouts of stubborness and the expectable breakdown he had after Saga and Camus were buried, he did seem to be a bit too... together."

"I don't know him well enough to be able to agree with you." The sadness in her voice as she spoke was unmistakeable. Indeed, she knew almost nothing about us, just like we knew nothing of her.

"Milo is a...creature of passion, so to speak. It's not entirely untrue to say we were waiting for it all to sink in. It's been too much, too soon." And that was quite possibly, my understatement of the year.

Athena laughed shortly and gave me lopsided smile. "You mean you expected him to collapse?"

"No my Lady, I merely expected him to react badly to the entire situation. Which is also why I originaly suggested him for this task." I bowed my head to her, feeling my skin prickle as her own aura ran metaphorical needles over mine, questioning. I did not enjoy the sensation, goddess or not. It was a deliberate invasion I had steeled myself to accept, yet she was blunt in her approach to a point it grated on my nerves. Assessing her control over us?

"You expected him to react so badly... so weakly?" Her terse question angered me slightly, though I did not allow her to see this. How could she not see the truth? Did she not see hearts?

"Milo's weaknesses happen to be what makes him so strong most of the time. Gold saints we are, but do not presume to think we are invincible because of that," I pointed out gently, refusing to look into her eyes when I could feel the ancient pressure of a thousand wars in her dense aura. She knew what we were, but the cards she had been given in this life were not under her wing and it irked her as Goddess. It also made her human side very afraid.

"That much is obvious," she replied in a surly tone of voice. I felt a muscle twitch in my forehead and I lifted my gaze to meet her, a trifle defiant and conscious of it. We had been defeated, yes. But she had been on the winning side, she always was. Nike was always beside her, was she not?

"I do not know why you are in such a bad mood all of a sudden, Athena, but do not take it out on me," I whispered, and saw her blanche. Her eyes flickered for a moment and cleared slightly, a look of bewildered pain stealing over her features sucessfully erased the previous frown. How much of her was a scared teenager and how much a presumptous Goddess?

"I'm sorry Mu, it's just that..."

"Forget it, " I cut in to keep her from apologising further, sparing her godly self the indirect humiliation of having to live up to her humane instict to bow to an elder. "How's Cygnus?"

She sighed and sat down beside me on the elongated waiting room chair. "Stable, his wounds got reopened, but the doctors seem to think the worst of it is merely the backlash of stress. Same thing could be said about Milo, it seems."

I patted her hand gently and smiled weakly. "They'll be fine, but for now, I think they both need a good night's sleep."

"We all need a good night's sleep," she muttered lowly and sighed. "You'll keep and eye on Milo?"

"He should wake up any minute now, why don't you wait with me?" I knew the answer to that far too well already, it my own sense of politeness and form that made me ask nonetheless.

"I'd... rather not. I mean, I already pushed him into this and I don't feel comfortable.. er..."

"Talking to him?" I prodded mildly.

"Yeah..." she let out a dejected sigh.

"Of course."

She then mumbled something too low for me to hear.

"Excuse me?" I pressed my lips together in curiosity.

"I said... I really am a failed excuse of a Goddess." She sighed again and pressed her face into her hands, shivering slightly. I debated whether I should hug her like one would a distraught girl or bow before her like a subservient follower. In the end, I did neither.

"We all have our own monumental failings. Stop worrying about it. Things will sort themselves out eventually." She lifted he teary gaze and blinked a few times.

"You honestly believe that?" A shadow of ellusive futures and untold knowledge hovered at the edge of her bright eyes, a promise of times of pain and war yet to come. All in a day's work when you defended a Goddess such as this.

"Well... from my point of view, things have worked out all right so far... within reason, of course."

Athena looked dangerously torn between outrage and laughter. Like me, she chose neither.

"Of course... I'm the saviour in this whole picture, aren't I?"

"Not really... but then again, humanity has always enjoyed blaming it's failings on their gods."

Just like gods have always blamed theirs on us. I often wondered who had been forced to pay the highest price.

MILO:

Something distracted me from the blissful void that had filled my mind moments ago, a gentle pressure on my arm that would not go away. I mumbled a half-hearted snap at whoever was bothering me and tried to curl onto my other side. The hand did not go away, furthermore, it kept me from rolling over as well. Another part of my mind complained as I felt a stab of pain in the arm the hand was not touching, perhaps that was why I had been kept from turning over to that side? But why was I hurt in the first place? I was forgetting something, but what? Damned morning amnesia.

I frowned testily and cracked an eye open in a sleepy attempt to give my assailant a warning glare as the hand squeezed my arm, rousing me even further.

"Mu." It was a rather flat statement. What was Mu doing here, bending over me? How on earth did he get into my... no, these were not my rooms. This was a hospital. I was in a hospital.

Oh hell.

I would have jumped to my feet had Mu not pushed me down as soon as I began to get up. His soft purple eyes shone with humour and a hint of worry as he let go of me once he was certain I would stay lying down.

"What happened?" I winced at the grainy sound of my voice in the uncomfortably quiet little room. Mu picked up a jug of water and served me a glass, allowing me the dubious freedom of sitting up on the little hospital bed.

"You passed out," he replied mildly, a soft smile playing across his lips. I blinked and almost bit the rim of the glass before scowling darkly.

"I what!?"

"As I said, you passed out." It seemed like my jamilon ward found my obvious discomfort quite funny, chuckling into his hand with undertones of mirth shining in his eyes.

"Just when I didn't think I could stoop any lower, I find out that rock bottom can actually get worse. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant." I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose. "Kill me now, if you please."

"Ha. Ha. Not until you finish your job," Mu commented with a soft smile that came out rather fake given that I could feel the deeply humoured irony that coloured his aura, so close to mine.

"Spare me," I snapped back acerbically, squashing down what little guilt his fading smile and frosty aura evoked in me. Another thought rose in my mind, one that I had been trying to push back down where I did not have see it. "How is Hyoga?"

"My, my, you finally ask about him." Not a question: a statement.

"Sarcasm needs raised eyebrows, you know?" I could not resist sliping in a verbal knife after sensing his obvious disapproval. "How is he?"

"Recovering," he murmured, eyes softening fractionally before adding, ".. thanks to you."

I rolled my eyes, wishing I knew better ways to express the relief this gave me. Mu must have known for he did not begrudge me for my spiky reactions. I realised I had been afraid to hear he was otherwise, that he had not made it... ridiculous. I was behaving as if I cared about him.

Almost.

Then again... perhaps a bit.

Just a little bit.

"Where is he?" I could not resist wanting to see him, to verify for myself that he was indeed safe.

"Back in his rooms, asleep. A few wounds got reopened and all that walking around and teleporting brought his fever back. He should be fine, however." Mu shrugged and pushed his long hair behind his shoulders, a twinkle of affection colouring his eyes a deeper and moister shade of purple. "You, on the other hand, have nothing more than a small fracture. You are quite fit to get up at any given time."

"Then why on earth did you keep me down when I woke up?"

Mu opened his mouth to answer honestly but a flicker of mischief stole into his eyes and he smiled conspiratorially before leaning back on his seat with a satisfied grin and saying:

"Shaka mentioned you were more manageable on your back."

I felt an embarassed flush creep up my neck as Mu wiggled the muscles above his eyes where his eyebrows should have been.

"He did not!" I ground out, and saw him shrug in mock innocence before breaking down into a low hushed laugh.

"No, of course not," he murmured still laughing, moving back so I could get up on my own. I rose to my feet and gave him an albeit gentler frown than his comment really credited, supressing a small smile at the easy joy he sought to give in a time of pain such as this. Mu's abilities as a leader were not those that one would notice first hand, but after knowing him for a few years I could tell when he was nudging (or manipulating) me into something. He had always been right in doing so this far, why not again?

Doubt should not exist in the Scorpio saint's mind, yet I seemed to doubt more than any of my comrades in arms ever had. Was this a measure of my weakness, or my humanity? Was the latter in fact only an exacerbation of the former? I doubted, yes. I also loved, hated and killed. In short, I did everything any human was pulled to do by instinct; was my sign not the very essence of what instinct lead us to do? So, if by my own animal urges I had become vulnerable, then... maybe it was not so much a weakness as it was my nature. Scorpio's nature. To be invincible at all times, mysterious, desirable, unatainable except to those who knew us, or to those to whom we wanted to make ourselves known.

Then again, I might be seeing too much in a rather simple matter. Why was it that it was so easy to understand everyone, at any given time, knowing full well why they did what they did and what they felt, but to be completely ignorant of one's own innermost motivations? Maybe I was just going through a bad period. Maybe I was just in mourning.

To be quite accurate, I was most definitively in mourning and going through a bad period. Maybe I should ask Athena if she payed for emotional counselling for her saints. Emotional counselling...

Ha.

Maybe I would stop thinking myself into corners if I stopped stalling and went to check on Hyoga.

HYOGA:

I reached out, no longer tentative and doubtful, called on what little power I could summon and scratched not-so-feebly at the defenses that kept me out. The walls they had pulled up to keep the truth at bay.

I felt a jolt of denial and anger, almost physical pain, and was hard pressed to pull back and cease battering at the shields, but I could not relent, not now.

The image of Camus came unbidden to my mind, but they were caught on their own ghosts, and though they were not answering I knew that on some degree they heard me. Their scathing emotional rebuff angered me as they dismissed the image of my teacher and I half-saw half-felt other images, other deaths.

I would have died before pleading to them. I was not pleading now, I was simply trying to tell them something. For a brief instant I thought I felt Shun reach out, but the hot irrational wall of Ikki's power stopped him. It might have only been my imagination.

Their anger changed and the shields seem to waver, though they remained in place. Once again I felt their fury, replenished by the memories of the past few weeks that were too fresh and to painful for them to contemplate. They had left me to that, on my own.

Doubt coloured their distant auras, so close I could almost feel them. Almost sense their pain, their fear and their remorse. Almost, but not close enough. And now... it was too late now.

I felt the walls come up marginally as they refused for now to contemplate a lifetime of the same horrors we had taken part of recently. This was no longer a game played out in an entertainment arena, this was a war between gods. And we were the pawns. For a brief instant I wanted to reassure them, to tell them it would be all right, that we would be all right. But there was no "we" as far as they were concerned. At least, not when it counted to me.

Denial, I felt utterly vulnerable and naked under the onslaught of closeness that rewarded my statement. Their closeness, their safe cocoon from which they had shunned me.

This time the feeling was of doubt, a growing fear and unease as their emotions clashed, the only discernible pattern being that of them wanting to proove to me that I was wrong. However, they had already shown me how right I was.

Acceptance, yes, they wanted to agree with me on that.

Pain, at the memory. I smiled darkly as I felt them unravel their tight walls slightly, trying to reach out beyond what I sent them through our link. I pushed them away, feeling their nonverbal surprise and dismay. They had thought me capable of doing this on my own, they had never contemplated me needing them.

Excuses.

Apologies.

I did not want them now. It was too late. It still hurt too much.

It would never stop hurting. No matter what they said now, what they did and how they reached out. The fact that their shields still held partially... that they had not been here for me, from the start, that I had - and still did to some degree- preferred death over this. A thousand deaths before this loneliness...

I pushed Shun's voice away, hard enough to hurt and violently enough to make Ikki's aura arch against mine in defiance, with a mixture of disbelief and sorrow and... understanding.

He recoiled and I felt the walls slam back up as I rejected what little comfort he had offered. I felt unreasonable anger grip me. I would not take the scraps of concern they saw fit to grant me simply because I begged. I was not here to beg them now, and all my pleas had done nothing to move them when it counted.

In the background I felt Shiryu shudder, perhaps this entire matter sullied his honour? Perhaps he simply felt guilty, or the fear of loosing Shunrei had been too much. And yet it had been only fear, for she lived. His teacher lived. Just like Seiya's teacher lived. And Shun's... well, that was a pain I could understand.

Or not.

I had killed Camus, I had killed my teacher, just like he had tried to kill me. No amount of apologies and well wishes could change that, not amount of their pity could help me. They might wallow in their own private hells but none of them had been forced do do what I had done. And even if they had been on the brink of making similar mistakes, none of them had in fact done them!

I had killed Camus!

What could they possibly say now that could change that? Even more, after they had refused me as surely as if I had the plague. I felt their answer, a muted admission that indeed, I hurt too much, felt too much and too deeply.

Were they afraid my pain would make theirs much worse? So it was easier to fix themselves up and then come and see if I had made it through, because it was easier and less painful for them to deal with this like that? Damn you!

Ah, that angered them. I felt them drop their walls, felt their pain, their own personal anguish at what had taken place, above all: the guilt. Like a watercolour of emotion they seemed to want to strangle me by asking: Is this what you want? Is this what you wanted? Goddess, it had been what I wanted at first, but now I could not stand the feel of them reaching out to me, not in worry, not in anger. As they showed me their pain and I felt myself cringe and fall back into the bed, tense and horrified, knowing full well that an aetheric clash like this would surely be felt by Saori, I felt them touch me as I touched them, felt them recognise in me a pain much like their own. I distinctly felt the moment in which they found something in me that called to them, the part of me that still clung to life even when there was nothing here for me. The part of me that might -they seemed to think- help us all.

Seiya's voice, as if he were right here in my solitary room. Aah... so now they figured the five of us together would be much better than separate groups? No, it was too late. Even if I still wanted it, even if my soul screamed that yes, this was what we had so hungered after....

The four of them could find a way, Athena knew, that was how they would have had it had I not pressured them to hear me out this once. My rejection stung them, confused them. Was this not what I wanted?

I blinked in surprise as another aura reached in between us. They reeled in confusion, the voice that had uttered that last statement was not one they recognised. The union of aura's was forced, unnatural; the newcomer felt alien to them yet all to natural to me. Above the din of their clashing confusion, Milo's voice rose like a cold sharp wind, rattling all of us.

Seiya and Shiryu screamed in anger, recognising who it was. I only let out a bewildered gasp as Milo twined his cosmo with mine and created a barrier much stronger and colder than theirs, effectively pushing them out. I felt myself go limp on the bed, unaware of the high strung passion that had kept me tense and arched in anger. Blinking to regain focus over the real world I was not surprised to find him leaning over me with a decidedly worried look on his face.

"And this too... you did because you wanted to?" I asked, feeling drained and tired all at once.

He sighed, giving me a strange apraising look. "Why did you do that to them?"

"Because I wanted them to know the truth before they tried to act like nothing happened," I shrugged, wincing as it jarred my wounds. Milo sat down at the edge of the bed warily.

"You really think anyone could pretend that?" he asked me, a trifle incredulous.

"I wanted to make sure."

"You wanted to hurt them," he accused, though there was no reprimand in his eyes or in his voice, just a soft statement.

"Yes." I was a simple admission, I was surprised by how little it hurt to realise it for myelf. He nodded as if that confirmed something, then ran a hand through my hair. I felt the cold grip of fear again, and confusion. However, above all, I felt gratitude. For saving me, despite my honest deathwish. For keeping them out even as we spoke, something which I would not have been able to do on my own. But most of all, I felt gratitude for the simplest of all reasons: That he understood my wanting to hurt them as they had hurt me, that even if he did not condone it, he accepted it.

"You still haven't answered my question," I whispered at last, trying to ignore the odd tingle of warmth his fingers had left on my scalp. Blue eyes regarded me quietly, a glimmer of fear here and there only reflected my own, but there was no rejection in them as he opened his mouth to answer.

"I already told you. Because I want to."

MILO:

As he slept I found my mind wandering over what had happened. Over the myriad choices I could have taken I had done what seemed most natural. So, maybe Mu was right. Maybe I did owe Camus a debt and I could repay it by helping Hyoga. Perhaps even Athena was right and this might help not only him but me as well. Of course, now that he had just discovered that hurting others was a good way to release excess emotion he was going to be all the more adorable to talk to. Damn. I might as well come to terms with the fact that I was dealing with a creature very much like me.

A lot more like Camus.

With an even more terrifying resemblance to Gabriel. The worst part, I realised, was that I was actually starting to care. I moved closer to his bed, watching his childishly calm as he slept. How odd it was too look at him like this, with no pain to marr his resting features. It was truly his eyes that made him seem old, those fathomless pale blue eyes seemed to hold the universe inside their unmapped expanse. Now, with his eyes closed and his brows pleasantly relaxed he looked more like a young boy than a warrior. The kind of young boy who woke up and went to school, and worried only over his tests and his girlfriend wanting flowers. I wondered what kind of life that would be? Would Hyoga want a life like that in exchange for this one?

The saddest thing was: if someone offered me a life like that instead of the one I had lived up to now, I would turn it down. How could life be life, without Camus or Saga or any of the people I knew? What could have life meant, without Blood to correct my mistakes or Ganymede to frown upon them when he was around? I didn't want another life.

I doubted Hyoga wanted it either. It was this, or death. Not... ignorance. Never ignorance.

I reached out to touch his forehead. Whatever the doctors had given him seemed to be working; his fever was going down and he didn't look like he was in pain. I stroked his hair, watched him frown slightly and then sink back into deeper sleep. It was such a marvelous golden blond; not like Shaka's which was pale, like summer's dry grass. Hyoga's was a deep rich yellow, like ripe wheat or honey even. A bit like Katrina's hair, only less wavy.

I sighed and leant back slightly, tracing the edges of a bandage across his temple and down his cheek. His neck was untouched, which made me feel oddly comforted. Yet there, on his chest...

I closed my eyes and pulled my hand away. When I opened them it was still there. Below his left clavicle, a bloodstained bandage patch covering one of my scarlet needles. That was my doing, as were the other thirteen pricks all over his body and the fifteenth one...

He who was trying to save him, was the same person that had almost killed him.

I forced myself to reach out, to touch the contours of his shoulder... broken also, by the looks of it.

It was irrational to want to cry over him, especially when I had failed to kill him and he was alive. I should feel happy. Why then, did I feel like crying?

I pulled she sheets up to his neck, tucking them in slightly. He murmured something under his breath and turned his head to the other side.

"What would you say," I whispered softly. "If I told you I think Mu is right?"

What would you say Hyoga, if I told you I needed you? What would you do, if you found out that keeping you away from your cliff, is the only way I have to save myself from my own?

What would you say, if I told you that you were the one person who finally made me understand why Camus loved me?

That you taught me why and how he loved me?

HYOGA:

I woke up to the steady discomfort of the morning sun beating my face. I felt sweaty and stiff, yet moving also brought back sharp stabs of pain here and there. Pain always seemed fresh after a good night's sleep, I noted. Turning around slightly I found myself facing someone's knees. I blinked, too freshly woken up to be sure of my own thoughts thanks to the miracles of anaesthesia. It took a few moments for instinct to kick back in.

I hadn't been I alone last night, when I fell asleep; those knees were Milo's.

I looked up curiously to find him asleep, head lolling forward as his chest rose and fell steadily under his folded arms. He looked deceptively peaceful like that. I let out a soft sigh and stretched out an arm to nudge his leg. Groggily, he shook himself and opened his eyes. Hair fussed by sleep with eyes still muzzily calm, he looked more approachable than I remembered him.

"Why is it," I started out then broke into a coughing fit. "...ah... why is it that, of the late, whenever I open my eyes you are right here, looming over me?"

He shrugged and then smiled. "Would you rather I were lying down beside you? I've been told several times that I tend to loom over people too much."

I felt the corners of my mouth pull up before the sun made me wince. "Could you close the curtains?"

He looked at me and then out the window, figuring out what I meant. "Ah.. sure." He got up, moving over to the window with what I could only define as catlike grace. If he was feline in battle, he seemed to be even more so out of it. I had never really thought about it, but he was unusually beautiful for a man, even more so for a warrior. Camus had been handsome to a point of extremity, but there was something different about Milo. Not feminine, but... graceful. He must have sensed my scrutiny for her pulled the pale curtains closed in one swipe and turned to face me with an odd look on his face.

"...yes?" He sounded uncertain, which made him all the more easy to talk to.

"Nothing. I was just..." looking at you. "Thinking."

Of course, thinking about Milo brought Camus back up into the light, and I didn't want to think about that. Not now... or ever. I didn't want to remember any of it. Not the smiles he once gave me, or his eyes after Isaac died. After I killed Isaac... Especially not that anguished and pleading look he gave me when he died... when I killed him. He had seemed to want to say something. Gods... he had practically told me I was right. Second place takes first... God! I didn't want to think about it now. Not his looks, his words or... or that metallic thud his clothed body made against the marble when he fell. That sound... it rang in my ears over and over again.

No, please no. I closed my eyes tightly and took a deep calming breath.

"Damn..." I whispered. I didn't want to remember it.

"Hyoga?" I jumped when I felt gentle fingers touch my neck, their pressure questioning in itself. I shook my head, swallowing back the lump in the back of my throat, fighting down the bile that rose in my oesophagus as I remembered Camus. God...

"Just... a thought. It's nothing important," I muttered, trying to pull away from his tentative touch.

"Like hell!" he declared, refusing tu budge. His fingers no longer asking but stroking my back. "What is it?"

I could sense how inadequate he felt doing this. There was something in the uncertainty of his tone and the tense hand that followed the line of my backbone that told me just how often he had to deal with other people's problems: never. Yet he was trying, he was honestly doing his best. And there was an oddly soothing quality to his touch, surprising, when he had hurt me so much, not so long ago. I leaned into his hand slightly, closing my eyes with a sigh. When I opened them his blue ones met mine. Worried, confused, uneasy. He really didn't know what to do with a distraught person and was alarmingly aware of this fact.

Did anyone really know how to help someone in pain?

I looked away, staring at the closed curtains and the pristine white walls. Like Siberia... only harsher in its orderly chill. Like the Aquarius temple, when frost had covered it whole.

Everything about his place reminded me of what had happened. From the pale walls to the wavering shields of my brothers. Even Milo, except that Milo wanted to help me. Even more, he wanted to forget it too. I wasn't sure of the extent of it, but there had been something special between him and Camus. Something like I would have wanted to have with my brothers.

That fact that he forgave me willingly, even when I had killed Camus. When it was me who took him away...

I looked back into his eyes, pain and confusion mingled in their depths. I smiled carefully, relaxing under his gentle caress.

It was an apalling realisation, that his forgiveness should mean more to me than anyone else's.

"Hyoga?" he queried softly, fingers never pausing. I fought the irrational desire to ask him to hug me, knowing it for the childish impulse it was. "Talk damnit," he snapped, but there was no real harshness in his voice. The acustomed sting was absent, making his voice deeper and more pleasant. A thought ocurred to me then, an impulse that made my belly flutter in want.

"Let's get out of here," I whispered.

"What?" he asked, blinking as he sought to follow my line of thought. I grabbed his wrist as tight as I could, knowing I might be hurting him yet unable to hold back once the thought had taken root in my mind.

God, yes...

"Let's get out of this place. Go somewhere else, far away from my brothers, from Sanctuary and..." I faltered, feeling my chest contract with sudden desire. "Far away from Athena."

Milo was speechless, his hand dropped away from me and for an instant I feared I had made him angry and we would have to begin this ridiculous game of barbed insults again. His eyes flickered, then focused back on me with sudden intensity, vibrant and dangerously focused. It was the look of a cornered animal the moment it was offered a way out.

"Yes," he whispered back. "Let's."

TBC...

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Toffee: yaaaaaay! New chapter! And I finally managed to drag the two Kings o' Angst out of the hospital and into the even more angsty future. Hohoho......just you wait and see! Dedicated to... ME! For actually managing to get back into rhythm. (I deserve it, no?)