By the time everything was said and done, when the physician had finished and the meds had kicked in, I wasn't sure whether I felt better or worse. Physically, things were beginning to subside. My wrist was wrapped and felt stable. It was fractured. It would take roughly two weeks to heal since I had an increased healing factor as a witch. However, with the magic depletion, it would probably take slightly longer than normal, and I was at higher risk for complications because of it.
As for the magic depletion, I was instructed to stay on bedrest and drink plenty of fluids. Only one of those would actually happen. There was too much to do and worry about to stay in bed. More information on the Aquireign and what their next steps were had to be discovered. I needed to start personally investigating the faculty to figure out who was slipping information to the Aquireign or Rainier. We needed to put in a long-term plan to fortify campus. We needed to go ahead and set up arrangements for the students to be quickly transported abroad to the Guardians' sister school in the next realm... and to top it all off, there was Louis. Now, without the adrenaline and the Aquireign and everything else posing an immediate threat, all that hurt would come bubbling back up, exposed like a nerve.
There was no doubt in my mind that as much as he had previously hated me, he couldn't fucking stand me now. Not only was I the professor that argued with him at every turn, that did everything in my power to shut him down and shut him out, but I was also the soulmate that abandoned him with nothing more than a brief note and my dog tags. There was no explanation, no nothing. I hated me. Why the fuck wouldn't he?
I up and left him right after we lost our entire family, right after he lost his baby sister. I left with all their blood on my hands, because I didn't want to look him in the eye and tell him that I was the reason why they were all gone. I still couldn't. I couldn't say that I played with him like it was some sick little game by hiding my identity and trying to get him to fuck me when I knew, fucking knew, that he didn't like me.
All along, I'd known better, but I had ignored the tiny, murmuring voice in my head telling me to be honest. And yet, I hadn't. I had kept going, continued toying with him. It had felt so good to have him look at me like I meant something to him, like the past didn't matter and he wanted me regardless.
Despite the pain it caused me, maybe it was better that he knew. Now, he would be able to put a face to the name—or number—when he cursed me. He would know who to visualize late at night, when he was pissed off and just wanted someone to be angry at. I was good at that—at taking the blame. That time, I deserved it too.
I sighed and turned the shower off, stepping out of the tub. It wasn't particularly late, not even half past 20:00, but there I was, showering and craving a cigarette before I passed out to what I could only hope would be a dreamless sleep.
I toweled myself off, ran a brush through my hair, and shrugged on a sweatshirt and boxer-briefs. Before I could stop myself, I also took Louis's dog tags from the tin on my nightstand. A modicum of guilt passed through me as I slipped them over my head. The tags dropped into the sweatshirt. The cold metal caused goosebumps to erupt over my skin.
Pulling my hair back into a loose ponytail, I padded out to the balcony. The sun had almost set. The thick, dark blanket of night almost entirely encompassed the sky. With the way things were going, my options were dwindling. I either had to start searching for the leak as soon as tomorrow morning, using any and all resources I could get my hands on, which could mean ticking off the Covenant reps, or I could throw in the towel. Instead of fighting, I could just say 'fuck it.' It would be a whole hell of a lot easier.
Doing nothing seemed stupid though. I had nothing to lose, so I had everything to give. Maybe the Covenant thought I was a traitor and colluding with the demons, but it didn't really matter as long as future generations continued to grow. One day, they would secure a peaceful, demon-free future for everyone.
That was the goal of Hunting, after all. Maybe the Covenant didn't want me being part of it anymore, but I took an oath. As forced as it was, I meant every word of it. As fucking awful of a person as I was, as much of a liar and coward and murderer as I was, I stuck to my word. That time was no exception. Before I died, whether I live a long life only to eventually end up offing myself or whether the Covenant executed me in a week, the Aquireign would be gone. Come hell or high water, they would go first.
A knock on my door pulled me from my thoughts. Shoving my lighter back into my pocket, I went through the house and grabbed a gun from underneath the table as I walked up to the door, cracking it open.
Standing there in ripped jeans and a gray t-shirt, sporting hints of a five o'clock shadow and weary-looking wrinkles under his hazel eyes was Louis. In the few hours that had passed since I saw him, he looked as though he'd aged ten years. The adrenaline must've backed off him hard. Then again, I couldn't imagine I looked much better. As clinical and distant as Covenant physicians were, even the one that had checked up on me seemed a little putoff by how ragged I looked.
With everything running laps in my head, I really didn't know how well I would take Louis's honesty about what a piece of shit I was. While he deserved the chance to talk, I really didn't think I could handle it. Mentally berating myself was pushing me to the brink of breaking down, so to hear it aloud from my soulmate...
I took a breath, silently cursing myself when it trembled audibly. "I don't want to talk."
"Me either."
I frowned and searched his face, not finding a trace of malice or resentment. What was he playing at? Why would he be there if he didn't want to rip me apart? "Then, what are you doing here?"
"I don't know," he said, voice low, almost mumbling. He sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Half of me wanted to come over, make sure you're okay, just sit here, and the other half is pissed off and horny and confused."
I blinked owlishly as I leaned against the doorframe. "As long as you don't talk, you can do whatever the fuck you want."
Louis bit the corner of his lower lip and looked down at his bare feet as he folded his hands behind his back. "I think I want to have sex, but as mad as I am, I don't think it's going to mesh well with your injuries."
Thinking back to how rough he liked to get just dirty talking or how hard he fought in a sparring session while we were in the midst of an argument, he was probably right. He'd turn my fracture into a snapped wrist, and how would I explain that to the Covenant physician?
"Fair point," I said. "You're welcome to get a drink and come sit on the porch in uncomfortable silence though."
Louis nodded and stepped into my apartment as I cracked the door open wide enough for him to slip through. I locked the door behind him, muttered general directions to where the glasses and drinks were, and then padded back outside to light up my cigarette and wait for him. Just as I took my first drag, he stepped outside, taking the chair next to mine.
"Any reason in particular you have two chairs when you're always alone?"
I shrugged. "Felt like it would be too easy for the students to deduce which apartment was mine if I only had one. Besides, that chair's a damn good footrest."
Louis nodded, the ice clinking in his glass. "Smoking is bad for you."
"We're immortal with increased healing abilities, I'm not too worried about it." I propped my feet up on the railing, sinking into my chair enough to see past the roof and get a good look at the little dots of white light peppered across the sky.
He hummed disapprovingly in response, not saying another word as we settled into silence. As much as I hated to admit it, it wasn't uncomfortable. Despite the elephant in the room, we were both doing a marvelous job of ignoring it, biting it back, and—well, I wasn't sure about Louis—enjoying the mere presence of one another. Bit by bit, the conversation that needed to be had and was weighing on both of us evaporated. Instead of everything that was happening, I was just sitting on the porch, next to someone that owned a piece of my soul, happy to have someone breathing at my side and wanting to be there, not in a hurry to dash out and get away, but instead asking to stay, asking to sit, wanting to stay just a bit longer.
"We're having a Unit meeting tomorrow at noon," Louis said after a while, cracking the silence obnoxiously.
"Am I still welcome?"
Louis nodded. "We'll address it at the meeting, but long story short, yes, you're still welcome. Just because I know your name and face now doesn't mean that I stopped believing in your innocence."
"Oh."
"We're not talking, I promise, we made an agreement, I'm just going to say this. I really don't want to ruin the little bit of peace we've got going here." He sucked in a deep breath and sat up a little straighter, making me turn to look at him fully for the first time since we'd stepped outside. He wasn't looking at me, though. Instead, his gaze was firmly fixed outward, up at the sky, at the other complexes, at everything but me. "I'm fucking pissed off at you, and I'm hurt and confused and everything else. I have one-hundred questions I want to ask and even more that I really, really don't want answered. I remember how things used to be, though, before, and I remember how much I was head over heels in love with you then. And, if we can work past all of this, if I can move past this and get back to that place with you, will you stay? Will you promise not to run again?"
"We're still not talking, but you need an answer, and if I'm being honest, I never planned on sticking around long enough to work past everything."
"Change your plan then. Decide to stay. Decide to see if we can make this work. Consider this my olive branch: me asking you to stay, to work on it, even though we still have a hard discussion ahead of us. Consider this me taking a leap of faith and assuming that no matter how much nasty shit we say once this whole thing gets underway that we'll get over it, come back together, and figure out how to make this work... Goddamn it, Lex, let me love you again. At least try."
I didn't deserve it, and he deserved a whole hell of a lot better. Both of those responses were something that threatened to branch into talking, though, and right then, he needed a one-word answer. Something that would either bring him a grain of hope or decimate anything he might have envisioned in a distant future. While my mind was descending into a chaotic mess, I felt my mouth moving on it's own, my voice emanating from my throat of its own volition.
I'd regret this.
"I'll try."
Louis smiled. It was a miniscule curve of his lips, but his eyes still crinkled, like they always did when he was happy. He reached across the small space separating our chairs and placed his hand atop mine, just resting it there as the conversation dissolved back into silence, leaving my serenity disrupted by waves of nausea. I knew better than to agree and before I could even map out all the potential consequences, I had a terrible feeling that they would be played out, and neither of us would be any better for it.
There was no turning back now. Once the truth came to light, he would retract the invitation. I would be let off the hook. There was no reason to worry about it.
*** *** ***
Lex,
You fell asleep outside, so I put you in here. I hope you don't mind.
Remember the Unit meeting at noon in my office later, and don't forget about taking your meds.
Louis
I rolled my eyes at the note on the pillow next to me, flopping back over to check the clock. It was half past six, a little early, but it would give me enough time to eat something with the medication so it wouldn't upset my stomach. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself out of bed and into the kitchen, stopping short when I saw my medicine lined up on the counter, which certainly wasn't where I left it.
Frowning at it, I hobbled over to the refrigerator, feeling the wrinkles marring my face grow even deeper at the sight of a brand new carton of orange juice. For fuck's sake, had he gone grocery shopping at midnight?
I peeked over my shoulder, looking around the rest of the apartment, almost expecting him to be lurking in the living room. Just because I fucked up and agreed didn't mean that we were ready to start all that shit. And, to top it all off, we hadn't had that discussion yet. By the end of it, there was no way in hell he'd want to keep me around, not unless I lied. But, I'd decided that I was going to be completely, horrendously honest. That was the least I could do after abandoning him and lying to him for so long about so much.
Shaking my head and doing my best to get over myself, I went about by morning on autopilot until the clock struck noon. I took my next round of meds as I headed to Louis's office, already running fifteen minutes late. If he was pissed off at me last night, I couldn't imagine how he'd react to me being a liar and unpunctual.
I went into his office. Everyone was already there and sitting in the few chairs around his desk. Some of them perched on the edge of the desk, and a couple leaned against the walls. Closing the door behind me, I propped myself against it, crossed my arms over my chest, and stared pointedly at Louis's agitated glare.
"Glad you finally made it," he said, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands in his lap. "Now that we can start, we need to move quickly as we don't have much time. First, I'm delegating the task of figuring out who in this school is colluding with the demons to a special taskforce comprised of Alexei, Meredith, Dr. Ponds, Remy, Erika, and myself. All of those on the taskforce will be notified by the end of the day and receive their assignments. This taskforce will work entirely under the radar with their knowledge going no further than the Unit 01 team. All of you have been screened thoroughly, so it's clear that the leak isn't coming from anyone here.
"Next, we all know exactly what the Covenant thinks of Alexei and his involvement on this team as well as the strategy team. Alexei," he said, focusing on me again, "everyone has discussed it, and we've decided that you belong on both of those teams. Your input is valuable, not to mention you haven't given any of us reasons to believe that you're colluding with demons. In fact, it's been the opposite. Everything Director Verllion said about your most recent time with Rainier was out of line and ignorant. It's been made clear to us that the Covenant is useless in this situation, if not a total hinderance, so we will be ignoring their advice for the foreseeable future, as well as labeling the reps as persons of interest going forward in the taskforce investigation.
"Finally, things seem to be under control with the current Aquireign situation. All barriers have been reinforced and strengthened. None of them show any signs of demonic tampering, and there haven't been any other attacks among survivors or any suspicious activity in the surrounding areas. I—"
"That's not under control, that's regrouping. That means something is about to go wrong," I said, voice falling quiet and hoarse. I cleared my throat, frowning at Louis. "You know better. Quiet doesn't equal control. In fact, it's a prerequisite for chaos in the majority of cases."
"Until the chaos comes crashing down around us and the demons are pouring in from the air vents and the windows, I'm calling it controlled."
I pushed my glasses back up my nose. "You're calling on the gods of fate to smite all of us for your overconfidence."
"It's called optimism, Alexei."
"There's a place for optimism, and then there's the place where we are. All I'm saying is that this entire situation has the potential to go downhill quickly, so there's no reason to risk jinxing everything when we finally hit a quiet patch to think and figure out what our next move should be to get the upper hand on the Aquireign."
"We're going to see what we can learn first. I'm not asking everyone to charge in there when we don't know exactly what we're going to walk into. If there's a partial resurrection of the Aquireign emperor anywhere near the vicinity we teleport to, I want to know about it beforehand."
"If we keep waiting on these answers and going through all the proper, official, Covenant bullshit, they're going to show up here." I sighed, already so very done with the day, the meeting, and everything else. "Has anyone spoken with the Celestial Academy about taking our students in until this is resolved?"
"Yes, I spoke with their dean of students first thing this morning. They can take everyone temporarily, but if things turn into a more extensive, long-term stay, they're going to have to send some out to other schools, like the Defense Academy."
"Great. My students are going to catch the stupid from the morons at DA. Our second-years could kick the collective ass of the Defense Academy's faculty and we know it."
"I'm aware, but that's all the more reason to rest up, get well, and get ready to kick some demon ass."
"I don't need you to motivate me."
Louis cocked a brow, almost smirking. "And I don't need you giving me any grief."
"I think I preferred it when they were just sniping at each other and ignoring the sexual tension," Abigail said, muttering to Meredith, but just loud enough to make sure Louis and I heard.
Meredith noticed and smiled. "Well, they're still ignoring the sexual tension."
"This is a professional meeting, Professor Lavenk. Hold yourself together for five more minutes, then you can go gossip about all the dirty details with Abigail and Remy in the hallway," Louis said, brows raised, and smirk a more defined.
"Short of any questions, I think we're finished here anyway," I said. "Things are calm enough. You don't want to make a move until we learn more. There's nothing more this team can do. It's all up to investigative and the taskforce now."
Louis nodded, looking around at the others. "Any questions?"
No one said a word and the meeting was dismissed. Instead of sticking around, not wanting to give Louis any opportunity to talk—or worse, check up on me in person—I slipped out of the room, still unable to teleport due to the magic depletion. I headed back to my office to grab a quick bite to eat, and then went to a lecture with my fifth-years.
Despite all the shit that had gone down in the last several days, the first day back teaching was going over relatively well. I was pleased with how smoothly things were sailing. Students were happy and eager, the younger years hadn't been too horrendous, and the meeting had even gone well. Louis had been civil if not borderline friendly... Things were looking up.
Almost the second the thought crossed through my mind, I realized that Louis wasn't the only one that had fucked things up by tempting the gods of fate.
Oh no, I'd done my fair share as well, and I was the one to push it over the edge, because as soon as I'd thought that and almost wondered if things wouldn't level out and be okay, the lights went out. The whirring of the projector and heating system went down as well.
"Does this mean we can leave?" Grayson asked, lifting his hands away from his notes and dropping his pen as though it had caught fire.
"This room has windows, so you can see to take notes, and I don't need slides to lecture you, so no, you don't get to leave." Despite the heating system shutting off only seconds ago, the temperature of the room plummeted.
The hair on the back of my neck stood straight, and goosebumps erupted over my skin.
Something wasn't right.
"Everyone, get down!"