All the Stars Between Us

Alone

Thalia heard the sound of the sword coming towards her, and she flinched. Suddenly, she heard a low static buzz, and then the clanging of metal on metal.

She opened her eyes slowly, to see Nyx standing over her with a sword through the hologram's back. Nyx was trembling, staring back at her with tears in her eyes.

"Don't worry, huh?" She whispered hoarsely. "Thalia, you could have been killed." She was crying now. She threw the sword to the side and wrapped her arms around her sides.

"But I'm fine," Thalia wheezed. She smiled painfully and tried to sit up. She felt a sharp pain in her side, and cried out.

Nyx rushed to her side. "Oh my god," she whispered. "Thalia, you're bleeding!"

Thalia was hiding the huge wound on her side by holding it with her arm. She hoped Nyx wouldn't see it. She didn't want to cause her any more pain than she already had with her foolish behavior.

"Thalia, your arm," Nyx cradled it to her chest, putting her hand on Thalia's cheek. "When you've recovered, I'm going to kill you," she whispered, her voice cracking. "How could you do this to yourself?"

Thalia cursed herself internally for hurting Nyx. She didn't care about her stupid injuries, but to be the one to hurt Nyx was unforgivable.

Nyx was sobbing now, burying her head in Thalia's shoulder. "Thalia, I don't know what I would have done if I lost you, because I can't function without you. You're my everything. I can't do without you, because I love you." Nyx whispered softly.

Thalia's eyes widened, and she tried to sit up again. "What did you just say?" she asked cautiously, not daring to believe she had heard right, and not wanting to get her hopes up if she was wrong.

"I said, I love you, Thalia," Nyx laughed. She was crying again, but this time, they were happy tears. She brought her lips down to Thalia's in a long, sweet kiss. She kissed Thalia's lips, then her eyelids, then her forehead and her cheeks.

Thalia was crying too, at how terrible the timing was. Here she was, slowly bleeding out on the floor, and now that she had so much to live for, it was all going to be pulled away by the cruel threads of fate.

Soon Nyx noticed Thalia was crying, and it wasn't because she was happy. "Hey, why are you crying?" she said, confused.

"Because I love you too," Thalia spoke in a broken whisper.

Nyx's brow furrowed, and her eyes turned worried. "But... isn't that good?" She asked slowly.

"No," Thalia's eyes saddened. "It's the worst thing that could possibly happen right now."

Nyx brought her hand up to cradle Thalia's face. "What?" She said, not understanding Thalia's meaning.

Thalia smiled dolefully, and brought her hand away from her side, slick with blood. "I- I'm sorry, Nyx," she whispered, looking up at the other girl.

Nyx's face was paper white. "No." She laughed. "No, I will not let my happiness go this easily" she whispered. "It's not fair! You don't just get to leave me like this. You don't. You can't." She ripped Thalia's tunic open, closing her eyes at Thalia's hiss of pain. She winced when she saw the wound. It was wide and deep, and it was bleeding. A lot. She had no idea what to do to stem the blood flow.

She grabbed the torn off parts of Thalia's tunic and balled them up. She looked at Thalia, who seemed to be taking it pretty well. "Brace yourself- this is going to hurt." She stuffed the fabric into the wound and held it there. Thalia cried out at once, and tried to claw it out. After about two seconds, she started crying.

"Nyx," she moaned through her tears. "It hurts... please... make it stop." She started to bang her head against the floor. Hard.

Nyx caught her head and cradled it to her chest, kissing it again and again. She was horrified. "Don't hurt yourself like that!" She cried. She had to stop Thalia from hurting herself. Nyx knew Thalia was in a lot of pain, but she didn't know how to stop it.

She cradled Thalia's head to her, whispering softly in her ear, caressing the side of her face. It hurt so badly to even think that those beautiful eyes may never open again, that those strong, firm hands would never again touch her, that her Thalia might cease to exist. Her world did not exist without Thalia.

It was a deep, stabbing pain down in her heart, and it was tearing out her insides, it burned so she couldn't describe how much it threatened to rip apart the very fiber of her being. She couldn't think, couldn't function, couldn't breathe-

"Nyx," Thalia rasped. "I'm scared. I don't want to leave you." Her voice broke, and with it, Nyx did too.

Nyx brought her lips to Thalia's so firmly, Thalia couldn't even think straight. She lost herself in Nyx, finding herself in the very depths of the woman she loved. She would have liked to stay there forever if it weren't for the stabbing pain in her side yanking her harshly back into reality.

She broke off the kiss quickly, and hissed in pain. She could feel the wound burning, an inferno of agony. She crawled up to one of the daggers thrown to the ground from when she was fighting with the hologram, and stabbed it into her thigh before Nyx could stop her. She gasped at the pain. It distracted from her side.

Nyx rushed over to her and gasped. "Thalia, what are you doing?" She yanked the now bloodstained dagger out or Thalia's hands and threw it to the side. She needed to stop Thalia from hurting herself. She crawled up to a weapons stand and picked it the sharpest dagger she could find.

"What are you doing?" Thalia eyed Nyx warily.

"If you hurt yourself, I'm going to do the same thing to myself," she said triumphantly. "Try it and see." She brought her hand down to Thalia's cheek.

Thalia caught her hand and sighed unhappily. "Nyx," she said softly. "You need to stop kidding yourself. There's no way I survive this, love. You can stop me from harming myself, but the truth is, I'm going to die. And there's nothing either of us can do about it." She let out a bitter laugh at this. "And as much as I wish with every part of me that I could stay, darling, it's not going to work. I'm sorry."

Nyx sat rooted in place, her face blank as a chalk slate. "I know, Thalia." She said in a voice just as expressionless as the hologram. "I know. But I think in some deep part of me, I had hoped you were going to be okay. But the truth is, every bit of happiness I've ever known has been snatched away from me. Everything. And do you know what the saddest part is? Do you?" She let out a crazed, maniac laugh.

"I actually thought this was going to be different. That I would have my happily ever after with the woman I loved, and that we would ride happily into the sunset, but you know what?" She smiled wistfully at Thalia. "I'm just going to be left alone. Again. And it's all my fault."

At this, Thalia grabbed her face. "Don't you ever say that." She said fiercely. "Never. It's not your fault, darling, I love you so much." She laid her lead in Nyx's lap. "I'm going to take a nap," she said softly. "A very long one. Don't wait up."

"No!" Nyx cried. But Thalia had already closed her eyes. Nyx felt her neck for a pulse. There was none. Praying that she had been wrong, she checked Thalia's wrists. Nothing. Still refusing to believe it, she felt under Thalia's nose for breath. But she was motionless, a faint smile still on her face.

"Thalia?" Nyx's voice sounded so loud in the empty armory. It was scary. "Please. Wake up. I need you." She pressed her forehead to Thalia's body and she cradled it in her arms until the lights came on to signal the coming of another meaningless day. Alone.