dg_cain | Breach (2/4)

Title: Breach
Author:

effie214
Betas/Cheerleaders:

queenof1000days
Characters/Pairing: DG, Cain, Azkadellia, Raw, Kalm; mentions of Glitch, the Queen and the RoboRents. DG/Cain angst.
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Summary: He'd left of his own volition, and here she was, rushing back to his side.
Warnings: Ahoy, angst.
Disclaimer: None of the characters herein belong to me. No infringement is intended.

Previous story found here.
Part 1 found here.

Now was not the time to bend. Now was not the time for a breakdown. And yet, it was all she could do not to shatter like the glass she’d just been resting against.

The rush of dread that had filled DG since Az told her the news tightened like a noose. It slowly strangled her and brought blackness down on her again. She ran through the castle, barefoot--the shoes she‘d been in had only slowed her forward progress, and she‘d chucked them off in the general vicinity of the library. Even after all he’d put her through, after the hurt, the pain, the separation, she couldn’t get to him fast enough.

He’d left of his own volition, and here she was, rushing back to his side unbidden.

She stopped so suddenly that her sister crashed into her back, sending DG sprawling unceremoniously against a marble pillar. At Azkadellia’s inquisitive look, the younger princess rubbed the back of her neck uncertainly.

“He won’t want to see me.” Her voice was so uncharacteristically soft that Az had to lean forward to hear her.

“He needs to see you before…” her sister countered before trailing off. Crossing her arms, she continued, the intensity in her voice something she‘d taken from her previously forthright sister. “Now is not the time to be stubborn, Deege.”

“This isn’t stubbornness. This is self-preservation.” It was the same excuse he’d given her in the gazebo, and DG found, with a twinge of guilty annoyance, that it rang true.

“You’ll never forgive yourself.”

DG looked down the long hall toward the medical ward. “I don’t know that I can, Az.” She didn’t know whether she meant forgiveness or seeing him. “He made it perfectly clear he wants to be away from me, far from here. I have to respect that.”

“What about what you want?”

“Hell if I even know.” Damn it, she was supposed to be stronger than this. She was stronger than this. Then again, Wyatt Cain had the distinct ability to knock her equilibrium out of whack, knock her carefully constructed world from its axis. She lost her bearings around him, drifting further and further away, her rope pulling taut.

Azkadellia took a step closer to her sister and placed a hand on her arm, trying not to outwardly flinch as DG stepped away from the embrace. “You need to see him. He means too much to you not to go.”

DG cut her eyes at her sister. “Aren’t you supposed to be all sisterly and supportive and threaten to maim him in unspeakable places for what happened?”

Ignoring the entreaty for levity, Az simply threaded her arm around her sister’s elbow. “Let’s go.”

They continued their way down to the medical ward, the cold terror in DG’s stomach spreading tremors through the rest of her body as they passed the makeshift morgue and the commemorative wall honoring those soldiers who had given their lives for their kingdom. When they passed the patient and rehabilitation wards, both women flinched at the painful cries of those being tended to.

Az led her the last few feet through to where a group of medics and Viewers were waiting for them, the air heavy with anguish and the inevitable.

Raw met them close to the doorway and drew DG into a tight embrace. At her inquiry after Cain’s health, he released her and looked down at his feet as he replied.

“Weak.” The word was a slap across the face. They’d never seen him that way, not after the Iron Maiden, not after he’d realized Adora was really, truly dead, not after he’d been shot--twice--in the span of a few days. “But not lost anymore,” the Viewer continued, his voice urging her eyes open after she’d recoiled. “Raw thankful for that. Come, DG.”

With Raw’s paw on one elbow and Az’s hand on the other, they moved past the medical personnel and the empaths and into a hastily constructed surgical area.

She’d never seen anything so disturbing in her life. Her tethered rope snapped like a twig and she was plunged underwater again, the guiding light she’d found at the surface snuffing out like a candle as she sank.

As her legs disappeared from beneath her, she was suffocating, gasping for air and comprehension. Her fingers hurt from gripping the surgical sink for support as she tried to stay upright. Her head ached from the indecisiveness of wanting to force her eyes closed at the horrifying sight before her, and her inability to look away.

There wasn’t a part of his body not battered, bruised, broken. It was so overwhelming that DG couldn’t comprehend it for a moment, and simply stared, mouth agape, unable to materialize a thought, let alone a cry, for the sight before her.

“What happened?” Az asked quietly.

“Unspeakable things,” Raw replied, his voice breaking. He had to pull his hand from DG’s tormented body; her emotions engulfed him, threatening to pull him down into the abyss with her.

“Oh, no.” The words were lost in a heartbroken sigh. DG moved her free hand to the glass and ledge of the wall that partitioned where they stood from where Cain lay in the operating room. Her palm flattened against the glass, as though she could reach through and touch him, give him some of her strength just to pull him back to her.

Az took her sister’s hand and then immediately dropped it as it burned her skin. DG’s despair was palpable, singeing, devastating. Raw gave the elder princess a sad, knowing look before continuing to speak.

“Raw will help Cain,” he assured the ashen young woman. “Raw will do everything he can.”

“I want to help.” DG turned and faced the Viewer, raising her voice so the other medical personnel would hear her. “Tell me what I can do.”

Raw shook his head sadly. “Cain too unstable for too much magic. DG too upset. Could hurt more.”

“I can’t just sit here.” Her voice was incredulous, angry.

Raw tried to continue, but Az beat him to the punch. “Deege,” she said gently, waiting for her sister to turn towards her. She balked at the cold detachment in her sister’s eyes--no matter how distant DG had been over the past months, no matter how dark the situation, there had always been a glint of something that resembled hope, minute and passing as it may have been. Now, there was nothing; no sparkle, no love, no sentiment at all.

Azkadellia’s pause was long enough that DG turned back to watch Cain in silence. “You‘ve got the best medics and Viewers in the O.Z. here,” the older princess continued. “They’ll take care of him.” When she received no reply or acknowledgement, not even the tiniest turn of DG’s head, Az pressed again, voicing the fears that had settled inside her when she’d first received notice that Cain was on the brink of death. “Sweetheart,” the endearment was almost silent in its hesitation, “you should go say goodbye. Just in case.”

This time, DG’s head swung around so quickly, her expression one of such raw, overwhelming emotion, that Az took a step backwards in shock.

Her sister did not notice. Instead, of Raw, DG pleaded, “Tell me he won’t. He can’t.”

“Raw cannot say for certain. Raw sorry, DG.”

“Oh, God.” The pain had left her barely able to form anything beyond monosyllabic pleas to a deity she‘d long distrusted, searching frantically for a devotion she thought she’d lost.

One of the doctors stepped forward and whispered something to Raw, who nodded. “DG need to go in now if she want to see Cain.”

Ignoring the searing pain, Az took her sister’s hand again. “I’ll be right there with you.”

DG shook her head and stepped back from the sink. “I’ll be okay. Really, Az,” she implored, stopping her sister’s protests. “I need to do this on my own.”

Azkadellia nodded and watched as her sister took heavy steps through the doorway. The elder princess had to turn away as she watched DG ball her hand into a fist and press it against her lips, trying to keep the sobs from echoing in the eerily still environment.

Cain looked even worse up close, and DG had to wrap her arms around herself in a desperate attempt to find comfort, just as she had when they’d last seen each other. She’d mourned for him, gone through the stages of grief after their emotional death. Now she was standing next to his bedside, in denial that his physical death was not far behind.

The anger followed immediately. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to scream at him, to hate him for leaving her in this position again, to despise him for again proving that she was always too little, too late when it came to him.

But as she looked down on the face that had, and would forever haunt her dreams in one form or another, she was most disturbed by the rush of love. She didn’t want to feel anything, let alone that.

She’d buried her heart, left it to freeze in the midwinter snow. Even in his unconscious, beaten state, he was thawing it.

Talk about role reversal.

There was a slight knock at the door of the surgical room, and Az appeared, trying to break the reunion as gently as she could. “They need to get started soon, Deege.”

DG nodded silently, then turned back to the form beside her. She ran the palm of her hesitant hand along his purpled jaw, then leaned down and pressed an almost kiss against his forehead. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice thick with grief. “I’m so sorry.”

She knew she should tell him she still loved him, no matter what had happened between them. She should beg him not to go, not to leave her alone again--she’d made the mistake of letting him go once, and she wasn’t prepared--or strong enough--to do it again. But she couldn’t think, her mind as blank as it had ever been.

When he began twitching beneath her, she leapt back in surprise, thinking for an irrational moment that perhaps her magic, her love, had been strong enough to bring him back from the brink. As soon as she saw the clench of his jaw and fists, however, she knew it was much, much worse than she’d realized.

Jesus Christ, she’d made it worse. Just like always.

The healers forced her from the room so quickly that she felt like she was back on the tower balcony, the night of the eclipse, when she’d been thrown backwards. The slamming of the door hurt, but not as much as the blinds on the glass partitions being closed, blocking the princesses from the frantic efforts of the medical team.

DG rested her head against the closed door. When Az approached her, DG stepped away from the comforting hand seeking her shoulder and sat heavily in one of the chairs propped against the cold stone wall.

She was shackled, sinking back into the bottom of her watery tomb. She did not fight the tide. Culpability was a heavy anchor, and she let it overtake her.

If she’d had the strength, she’d have run as far as her legs could carry her, trying in vain to outrun the shame, the self-reproach, that tunneled her vision, shrouding the Infirmary in darkness. But DG found she couldn’t move; she couldn’t find a way out of here if she couldn’t see past the end of her nose.

Isn't that the way it always is, she mused darkly. Focusing so much on the forest that you can't see the trees.

She sat in silence, the sound of rushing water deafening her from the goings-on of the ward. DG barely noticed as Glitch joined them in the Infirmary, planting himself between the two princesses to wait out the storm with them.

Even as lightning crashed and the waves swelled around her, ferociously consumed her, no matter how long the tempest raged, DG did not reach out for her companions. She did not seek their comfort or support, and they gave up on offering it. She felt as though they instinctively knew she’d just drag them down with her.

Raw exited the medical ward three hours after Cain was brought in, and was so exhausted that he not only nearly collapsed, but was unable to speak of the team’s progress. Kalm replaced him, and it was the younger Viewer who addressed the anxious princess some eight hours later.

“Cain very fragile,” he said, soft enough not to disturb the sleeping Azkadellia or royal advisor.

“But he’s alive?”

Kalm nodded, the pause hanging between them articulating that which was unspoken: for now. “Healers will move him to recovery wing. You can see him shortly.”

DG grasped the Viewer’s paw; she didn’t know which of them she was trying to reassure. “Thank you, Kalm.”

The furry creature nodded. “Kalm go tend to Raw now.”

The younger princess nodded in return, tired eyes moving back down to her folded hands. Her cuticles were frayed and bloody, just as Cain’s body had been. She’d spent the endless hours waiting by picking at her hangnails, trying to feel something again. Her lip was split open slightly from biting it in worry. Her neck was sore from staring at her feet or the floor, as she had been unable to lift her eyes toward the operating room. If she stared long enough, images of him locked in the tin suit, by Zero or by herself, of him walking away from her, and him fighting for his life, played along the blank door like a horror movie.

She jumped as the terrifying door opened, and watched as the medics moved Cain’s stretcher, slowly and gently. Struggling to her feet, DG followed them wordlessly, standing at the edge of the bed as they lay his body onto one of the cots. In her peripheral vision, she saw one of the medics bring a chair and place it next to the bed in invitation.

Instead of moving toward him, she turned and left.

Fled.

Ran.

Abandoned.

After all her waiting, after her promise not to walk away from him, she did just that.