Bane

February 1, 1980

"Start with an apology... and promise me your life. End yourself with the same knife you used to kill me. Be the poetry you wished we were. Apologize, and end your life... and I will forgive you."

Trent felt cold, not from the night air - what was not truly night air; Trent was fairly certain this was a dream; he was a cold, a creeping chill born in his very bones, clawing its way through his body. For all his wit, Trent was bereft any reply. He had not a single doubt inside him that Nadjia had to die, but where certainty was absolute in his justifications, Nadjia sewed doubt.

"I'm sorry, Nadjia. I'm sorry that you're gone, and I'm sorry that I'm the one that did it."

"Prove it. Take your life, and we will be even."

Trent frowned, and shook his head. "I'm no use to you if I'm dead, Nadjia."

"You're no use to me at all."

"Let me prove it."

"Take your life."

"Or I could live for you."

"If you're sorry, Trent... if you're truly sorry, you'll pay the price for what you've done. I cannot forgive you without your accepting consequence."

"What about you? Where is your apology? Where is the regret for how you threw me away? Where is the reward for my loyalty?"

"A peace in death that you could not find in your life. An escape from the pain you feel in losing me... not only to Jonathan, but to death. The spite you inflicted affected more than those you intended, didn't it?"

Trent felt his eyes welling up, and tried to blink away the tears, but to no avail. He felt his knees growing suddenly weak, and he dropped to the floorboards, palms on the scar he carved into them. Trent's body shook as he sobbed.

"Come now, my darling. There's no need for that. This is all a bad dream. Wake up, and face destiny, Trent. Face destiny, and we can be together at last."

Trent looked up from the floorboards, Nadjia's face pale in his eyes. "Together?"

"If you take your life, I can forgive you. If I can forgive you, then we have a new foundation. A clean slate. Your life to pay the toll you took in mine. Besides that, my Jonathan lives, and so I have to let him go. How better can you dedicate yourself to me, than in death?"

♚ ♚ ♚

Trent opened his eyes to the darkness of his bedroom, his bed saturated in his sweat, the room cold around him, and he felt her nearby. A month's passage made it difficult for her to get the jump scares in on him, and she was steadfast now a familiar presence in his life. Trent turned onto his side and Nadjia was there laying beside him, propped up on an elbow, staring at him with those horrible hollow sockets. "Will you consider my proposal?"

"You need to let me rest, Nadjia. You can't keep doing this. I'm not sleeping, I barely have an appetite, and I haven't been out of the house. This is punishment enough."

"Somehow I think you've got the better side of all this. The fact that you can sleep at all, can eat at all, and can leave your house at all is an example of freedoms you enjoy that I can't. If you think this is punishment, you're blind. Considering your company, that's saying a lot."

"You don't need to remind me." Trent sat up, and pulled himself to the headboard, leaning against it. "Did you mean what you said? About us being together, you and I?"

"I couldn't ask my Jonathan to take his own life. He has so much to live for... you on the other hand are still on a countdown. If you don't do it, he will... and I suspect his way will be painful for you." Nadjia reached for him, her immaterial hand passing through Trent's cheek, leaving a cold tingle as it did.