It is decided that Soli will go back to the compound with Tonic to collect the remaining members of our group. As it seems more and more apparent, the city is where we are needed. As much as Verando and Soli don't like it, Tyler will much more easily learn to use our ability here, where there is more to practice on, and the stakes are higher.
On-the-job training wasn't the easiest way to learn but it seemed to be the best way to teach a Solomonari, at least in my experience. The compound was too safe, and getting back to it, in a catastrophe such as this, was nearly impossible.
Being in the city made the most sense. Besides the fact that now that I knew who Soli was, the idea of leaving her behind in a world that was foreign to her seemed unfair. Even if she didn't seem to struggle with it herself.
I try not to notice as the two stand before each other, Soli looking up at him as if she may never see him again and Verando regarding her with distrustful curiosity. I can't help but notice that his child will be running recon while he remains with me. My inner desire for children twinges; would he be so willing with our child?
Send them off on a dangerous mission while he remains behind with me?
Parents should do anything for their children; it feels too painfully close to what my parents would have done for me. "Are you sure you want to go?" He asks firmly of Soli, who takes a hairband and knots it in her hair a few times, making the poofy mass into a messy bun.
Of course, it's Soli, he asks, not Tonic. I sigh, distracting myself by looking at the cool tiles on the floor. I need to mind my own business, I suppose; Tonic is an adult, as is Soli. I shouldn't think of him as a child.
"I think you would have a come apart if we did it any other way. If you wanted to go, I wouldn't be having this discussion with you." Her words make me pull my eyebrows down, finding them a bit untrue, he could be reasoned with if you made a valid case.
"You're hurt." Verando points out to her, reaching to touch her arm, but he hesitates. She doesn't meet his reach, if anything, tilting her body away.
She turns her head away, wrapping her arms around herself as if to protect her from him. "I'm not ready for that yet."
He sighs at her, lowering his hand.
"Please don't act like you care, Doe." her eyes lock on him, and she forces a small smile as she looks up through her lashes. "And you know what I mean by that. I know you way too well, you think I'm being dramatic, you know I'm more than capable of going."
He tenses, unprepared for the direct insight into his psyche. "That's not true." Her face changes into one of humor as she offers him a small giggle, a soft sound that is quite endearing as her expression softens.
"One day, he'll know you just as well as I do, and he'll call you on your shit, too. "
"Now I think you're being dramatic." He grumbles in response.
"Take care of him; he's pretty valuable, and I kind of like him. We'll be back, I'd say, by morning. There's some food in the fridge but I didn't necessarily prepare for this."
His expression changes to one of a twinge, a nerve has been struck. "Of course not. Always on the run."
She shrugs, not taking offense to his observation.
"Just get back in one piece, yeah? I don't know my way around, and I'm going to need a tour guide."
I guess that's Asshole for 'I hope you're alright'. The exchange, frankly, makes me a little uncomfortable, and I just want them to part ways. Two people finding each other again is difficult enough, but the history is mind-numbing, they've known each other their whole lives, a type of closeness that I had longed for with him. I guess I'd hoped to see a brighter, happier Verando.
I had hoped for smiles and gentleness, after all, he married her. But, seeing that, if anything, he was even more hateful than he was usually, it was a little disappointing.
Was this all I could hope for, for our future? Was I getting the dumbed-down version? Surely not. As they leave, he exhales, and I watch his shoulders sag. It's the first time I've noticed he's in borrowed clothes, a pair of older style jeans with tears in the knee and grit stains coupled with a shirt that is not nearly long enough for his torso, stretched across his chest in a feeble attempt to cover the broad man.
Barefoot, the pants hanging loosely off his hips, exaggerating the gap between the two articles of clothing. "Only you can look like that in someone else's clothes," I comment, shifting uncomfortably in the shorts I've been provided.
He responds with an amused look, plucking at the material of his shirt as if he were seeing it for the first time.
"I was told wandering about naked was frowned upon."
I can't help but scoff. "It's always been. I didn't realize you cared." I flinch at the pain in my temple and press my palm to it to offer counterpressure. "You're being very distracting. I'm not supposed to get my heart rate up."
Verando makes an amused sound, dabbing at the corner of his mouth with his thumb to check for blood.
"Did you get hit in the face?"
"Naturally, by my ex, if you remember. Kicked is the better terminology. Lucky she didn't take a tooth-" My face makes him pause, and he approaches me, sitting on the couch beside me. "Sorry."
I don't know what he's apologizing for, the fact that now the thought of him being married to someone else is raw again, or the fact that he seemed so casual. At least he never had children with this one. I haven't even had the mental capacity to unpack this, deal with all of this, and decide how I feel.
I raise my hand, stopping him. "Just don't, please. My head feels like it will explode, I just want to sleep."
"I'd rather you stay awake for a few more hours, head injuries are rather tricky." His head cocks to the side as he watches my eyes though his attention quickly shifts to my forehead. "How about a bath?"
What I had hoped for was my usual coping method, him alone and me at his disposal, but what I got was dunked into a porcelain basin that chilled my ass to the core while I waited for the tub to fill up. At least it was deep.
The water pressure here was none too decent, and I found myself more interested in looking at the water quality since I wouldn't get my other wishes satisfied. As the sulphury mix covered my cuts, I found that it brought on a whole new form of pain, causing me to leap out of the tub with such enthusiasm that it nearly knocked my companion over.
"Too hot?" He raises a brow, wondering if I've lost my mind.
"No, it burns!" I snap at him as if somehow it's his fault. I feel fit to explode, like this was the last straw. "God, this place is just awful!" I finally manage when I can muster it all into words. "I feel like I'm not getting clean at all, and now the water burns like hell's fury! There's no drain on the floor, so I can't even bathe out here."
I can't help but feel overwhelmed with all that's happened today, he sits on the edge of the tub to take me in. This wasn't how it was supposed to go, getting our asses kicked by unknown forces. We were supposed to return the weather to normal, which is another situation where the people involved weren't truthful.
If I had known, I probably would have still come, perhaps I would have been less encouraged to run around the city. "I had thought the scariest thing out there was a lycan, besides dragons, that is, but these cat things-" I shake my head.
"History dictates my father's mistakes, it's written in their books as clear as day, have they learned nothing from our struggles? Have they not realized that this is exactly what happened to us? A better super-soldier, Randy, Marcello shot them full of bullets with this... this... gun!" I exclaim, animating with my hands.
He takes a slow breath, encouraging me to do the same to calm myself.
"They didn't even flicker. Why is that? Why-" I run my hand through my hair only to flinch at the gash and jerk my hands down. I make an irritated sound as I cut the water to the tub off.
"I'm just so damn sick of being lied to. I'm so sick of people assuming that I won't help them if they tell me the truth, even four hundred years in the future, I'm still being lied to." The topic seems to shift and his lips pull into a thin line as he realizes I'm talking about him too.
Finally, I started to deflate. Looking at him through softer eyes, I see that he wishes I would calm down, his face riddled with concern instead of the annoyance that I was expecting. Though, if I had to imagine, he has no right to be annoyed with me. I've been more than patient with him.
"I know you didn't know she was alive. I know you saw her die. Did your memory of her change?"
He thinks, glancing towards the ceiling uncomfortably. "No. I remember it clear as day."
"So then, who is that?" I almost want to demand answers, my voice barely above a whisper.
"It's time travel; Tonic still remembers us dying. I won't try and pretend I have the answers to this. Frankly, it scares the hell out of me. If she is here, someone has brought her back for a reason. I have a theory, but-"
I zero in on him, and he eyes me suspiciously, looking like he might not want to tell me. I've wanted to talk strategy and theory with him since I saw the cats. His nature was rubbing off on me, I was starting to think that ill of everyone that we met, and I was finding more times than not it was correct.
"Will you let me sponge you off while we talk? This is driving me mad."
Ah, I'm disgusting.
"You should talk." I remind him. "I'm fully aware of how vile I am, I'm trying not to think about it."
His words are heavy, with a double meaning. He's upset with himself over Soli?
Leading me to the shower, he glances around like he's unsure of our modern conveniences as well. There aren't readily available buckets and clothes in this time, everything is shiny, chrome, and attached.
Rolling my eyes at our situation, I pull the silt out of the bathwater and dump the murky ball over the drain in the shower, grimacing, but at least the water is clearer. He raids the linen closet, and I try not to shiver, exposed in the shower. Finally, he produces a sponge and dunks it in the water, slathering it with a bar of soap and reaching up to angle the shower head only to realize it comes off.
We both eye each other, and I try not to giggle at his expression, embarrassed that he might have just broken it. Wide-eyed, he opts out of replacing it and turns on the water to wet my skin before going over me carefully with the sponge. I shudder at the feel of the silt, oil, and grit mixing into the quickly blackening water.
"This is pretty gross, Nic."
I won't be distracted. I wait patiently for his theory. After a long silence, when I found I could hardly take it anymore, he finally spoke. "Someone who knows us has come forward in time. My theory, be it far-fetched, is that this has happened before, and we were successful. Something about Marisol feels like a distraction; why else bring her? She's disrupting things; she's helping people; she's also almost gotten us both killed."
I watch the darkening water, feeling a flurry of emotion from anger at him for accusing her of a heavy weight of uncertainty.
"This is someone acting on the environment. Did you know that the weather gets better where this 'Savior' goes?"
"But it doesn't last." I remind him.
Shrugging, he turned the water back on to rinse the soap from my body, turning me around so he could work on my back. I hear his breath catch at the road rash that covers my shoulder blade. He's surprisingly gentle as he massages the lather onto my skin. "They've had a long time to work at this; this crisis has been going on for only twenty years. It was not great before, but it went downhill; what if someone pushed it over the edge?"
"Someone?"
"I think there is another Solomonari. There must be. They've looked back into history, read the books; when Helen brought us back, we must have fixed things, so they went back in time to get Marisol and hope to stop us."
"Why Marisol?"
Verando falls silent as he ponders it over. "To break us up? I'm not sure. I don't even know how they would know. Don't you find it odd that Tonic didn't tell us that Soli was Marisol? She does look different. I've never seen her hair like this, but it's her." I shake my head, spinning around to face him.
"You think Tonic is behind this?"
His expression is stone as he watches me. I don't necessarily think that's precisely his thoughts, it is just a theory, but even the thought is offensive. Tonic has been more than helpful.
"He brought you right to her." His tone is accusatory. "They went, very willingly, together."
"They know each other." I remind him, "They work together." He gives me a look as if my assumptions should be obvious. "Randy, it's not Tonic. How can you say something like that about your kid? You're supposed to stand up for your children."
Verando scoffs at me, rinsing me off once more before starting on my legs. The warm lather does feel good on my tired muscles, and as much as I'm trying to decide if I'm upset with him, the attention does feel good. It's not often I'm on the receiving end of the bathing and doting; it's hard to remind myself that he can be a good caretaker if he sees it fit to be.
Verando grumbles to himself, unamused with my excuses. "Children are progeny, we do what we can for them but Tonic is older than I am by quite a bit, I hardly consider him a child. A man makes adult decisions, if this is what he has decided, he will face the consequences like anyone else. We can not excuse him just because we like him and know him from a past life. Am I not proof enough that people can change?"
When I glance at him, I see that he's watching me. Those light eyes boring into my soul, pleading my forgiveness.
Had he changed?
I have a hard time liberating him from his suffering, caught in the limbo of being upset with him and knowing that it was in a past life, as he said. Indeed, he was much different than when I first met him, but it had only been a few short years; he was so coarse with Marisol, right back to where we started with his temperament.
What if this is what the person had hoped to insight? Not that she would break us up in that he would go to her, but that I would see who he still was. "Why did you do it?"
His confused expression makes me sigh.
"Why did you cheat on her? Why not just let her go?"
"I didn't know what I wanted. I was miserable, and I couldn't explain why; other women didn't see me so clearly. I didn't want to be analyzed; I wanted to feel anything but how angry I was. I felt like a project to her, always sifting, digging, always trying to find out why..." He lowers himself to sit on the tile floor as if suddenly exhausted.
I stand between his legs as he scrubs the remaining grit off my calves.
"I'm not someone's pet; I'm not broken-" I hear the harsh terminology and see him fight to restrain himself. "Marisol sees everything and takes no prisoners. Might analyze people but I keep it to myself. It gets rather tiresome to discuss one's worth day in and out."
So he couldn't handle there being two of him? Yet I find them very different; Marisol doesn't mind speaking her mind, I never thought of Verando as having tact, but I suppose he does in certain instances.
"You could have left."
"I was young. She could have left, too, and she didn't. I was trying to leave, get her to leave me; I should say maybe if it had happened differently, quicker, if she hadn't run as she did for so long. When I caught her, I found I didn't want her."
He carefully lifts one of my feet and rests it on his chest to scrub my ankle. A stressful thing, I suppose, I notice that when he's anxious or uncomfortable, picking at things is his go-to. After an argument or a long day, there were moments when I would find my bedroom spotless and think nothing of it. Over time, it dawned on me that his manic energy was manifesting itself.
I was so used to having servants that his obsession with order faded into the background.
"Do you still love her?"
"Yes." The answer is clear. "But not as I love you. Not as I feel for you. Could I take her to bed? I think I could manage it, but it's not the same as what I feel when I look at you." He reaches up to take my hand, kissing my knuckles.
"You don't have to worry about me returning to her if that's what you're asking. You have every piece of me."
I chuckle at my drenched warlord, his clothes clinging to his wet skin, not having the foresight to take them off with the focus on my injuries. I carefully slide down to my knees, resting my hands on his shoulders as I settle between his legs.
"I literally have a piece of you." I sigh. Could I deny him when he gave me a part of his life? When he willingly shortened his immortality to keep from living without me? I hold his face and kiss him, rubbing my nose against his in a way that always endeared me to him. "I love you, too."