Awake

Chapter Forty-Nine - The Clockwork Door

Natalia sat in the decimated remains of Field-Marshal Bone's office, on a chair she had brought in from elsewhere. All the furniture was ruined and the walls were pitted with shots but it still felt better if she was here, where the commander of Subterra belonged, rather than in Jonathan's office.

This was a waiting game. There seemed no sense in advancing on the sub-dwellings – what would come would come, after all – and there was no high command left to take care of. They were all dead. Every last one.

It was only now that Natalia realised what an unnecessary and self-destructive act that had been.

She tried not to feel afraid, but fear came easily. They were in a precarious position, with few fully-equipped soldiers and no real ground to hold. They didn't know for sure how extensive the sub-dwellings were, even. They could face a force they could never hold back.

And somewhere up above her head was Jonathan, searching for a door, heading out to a place that might destroy him. She pictured him sickening from the poison in the air, hair falling out, body caving in on itself even as he stood. She pictured him burning up in the driving heat, gasping for oxygen in an airless world.

Jonathan, who might be about to die. Jonathan, who she might never see again. Jonathan, who hadn't even bothered to say goodbye.

Natalia wondered if there'd ever be a day when she didn't think of him, when her love for him wasn't like a bruise on her heart, hurting her with its tenderness, and when a million little ideas didn't all end in "What would John think? I must tell John!" Was it possible that that would all slip away? What would be left, after so long of measuring herself by him? Was she a girl at all, or just a being with the sole purpose of loving him? What happened, when all that went away, if it ever did or could or should?

She didn't know.

On a dim and distant level, Natalia was ashamed of herself for feeling such. She had never intended to be a moon to his brighter, more exciting planet, to revolve around him and reflect the glow of the sun back onto him. She had never wanted it to be that way.

They had been equals, once. They had grown up side by side, challenging one another, training together, pushing one another further. She had corrected his mistakes, spent hours teaching him skills he hadn't the patience to learn for himself. In turn, he had kept her on her toes, refused to let her become complacent, kept the both of them at the top of their game.

They had been friends. They had trained together, eaten together, laughed together. They had inside jokes and a million shared stories. They had been best friends, and Natalia had liked it better that way. She would rather be his best friend than a girl who was in love with him.

Even when she had fallen for him, at the first, it had been better than this. He was there for her just as she was there for him. It had seemed like a natural progression, from best friend and almost sister to lover. It had changed nothing, just moved them a little closer, given them another secret to share between them.

It was different now, though. It was this that she hated, this unrequited infatuation. He had gone away from her and fallen for a dream girl, one with whom Natalia could never compare or compete. She had waited for him, loving him more and more in his absence, longing for him to come back.

She had never been so alone in her life as she had been those two years he spent asleep. Suddenly, the person she could always rely on, the one who knew her inside and out, the one who understood, was gone.

And he had never come back.

No, Natalia wasn't proud to love him as she did, futilely and with desperate hope, but she couldn't help it. She wondered if there were people who, having fallen in love, could expel it from themselves completely and just get over it, just move on.