Donovan woke from the long dark desperate to see his brother, but the eyes that met his as he slowly wrestled awake were amethyst, not indigo, shot through with silver threads that made them look fractured. Dante... Not his brother. Donovan looked away from her, scanning the limited area of the room that he could see, but his head wouldn't move, and he could see nothing but curtain and Dante. His panic rose, and he looked back into her eyes with growing desperation before the muscles in his mouth would respond to his frantic orders.

"D...Dom..." His voice wasn't even a whisper, but she understood. Her eyes softened in a terrifying manner, and for a moment Donovan was afraid his heart would stop, the weight and implication of her pitying sympathy smothering him. When her eyes finally shifted to the side, away from him to rest on what was probably the next bed, it took him several seconds to make the connection and only then did he take a ragged breath, tears of relief standing in his eyes and refusing to be blinked free.

Dominic was in the next bed, and he was alive. They wouldn't have kept him in an infirmary bed if he wasn't alive...and inside, Donovan knew he was alright. Somehow, he would have known if Dom's life was in danger. Assurance slowly assembled itself in his heart, and he met Dante's gaze more squarely and managed the tiniest hint of a smile.

It's the only way. If I break too, he'll have no one. He needs me.

She didn't touch him; it would only weaken her resolve, and she needed to be strong until he knew. Then he would recover, he would live, and then... then she could grieve for all that had happened. But only then. Not now. Dante straightened her shoulders a little, squared her jaw, and managed a voice of liquid accented ice that was kept calm only by sheer force of will.

"Nathan broke your neck." Those eyes widened, and she hardened herself against her sympathy, looking away from his pleading gaze and forging on. "The doctor wouldn't talk to me, but I snuck in and listened. Your vertebrae were broken, but there's no other damage, save some swelling. They gave you a shot, and said you'll be fine in a few days. No paralysis. Dominic had his throat slit, but he's better off than you are. Rox is with him. You both will be alright."

Silence.

Sharded violet finally met pained indigo, and something broke within her. Fighting against it was useless, and she swayed slightly on her feet, the mercury melting from her eyes as she bowed her head over one of his hands, and began to cry.

"Mon chéri, j'étais si effrayé, j'ai pensé que je vous avais détruit pour toujours... Je vous aime tellement, mon amour, I thought I lost you... "

Her display of emotion made him take a breath. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her close, and his body would not move. Lost him? Not to death...but an injury like this would surely attract the attention of the Creche. He and Dominic were as good as gone. His panic was replaced be helpless rage, and his tears broke free and travelled down his cheeks. Anjélice and Rox, gone, just like everything else the had formed an attachment to beside each other. They were already gone. This was nothing but a dream. Dominic was the only constant.

He should have known better. Far too late, his training came to the front and steeled him against the rest of the world. As before, everything but his twin became slightly unreal and entirely unimportant. The lingering attachment to Anjélice stung, but he covered it as best he could within himself and buried his grief. There would be Dominic. There was always Dominic.

It was almost enough.

She could hear faint crying from the other side of the curtain, near the twins. Dante, no doubt; Wick listened to her former commander outline the injuries the twins had sustained and shook her head. Incredible luck; no mortal wounds, no permanent damage...the Creche constructed their children very well. From what little she knew of the Keep, they wouldn't let them stay during their recuperation; they cost far too much to be left in the hands of a lone military doctor, and from the description of their conditions, they wouldn't be babbling anything about her anytime soon. Two down. Dante might know...but would she want to jeopardize Donovan by admitting his part in a plot for premeditated murder? Not likely. Same for Roxy, if she knew. Four down. Mode was gone. Five down. Who did that leave? Gabriel and Solenis had been and gone, and not spoken a word to anyone - they weren't going to turn her in. Seven down. Who did that leave?

The only one who could undo everything and had motive to do so. Katera Quistin.

The authorities would find her dagger with Dominic's fingerprints and Dominic's blood on it, and Katera's fingerprints as well. If she knew she was going back to Charybdis, would she hesitate to give a full accounting? That would drag the twins into it, and they would plead coercion and implicate her. That would cause problems, and Wick was tired of problems. She couldn't bank on the chance that they wouldn't believe Katera. The girl had to have some reason to keep her mouth shut. She might be angry enough over Mode to want to turn her in anyway...but she didn't think so. Kat was a survivor. If Wick gave her an out, the girl would take it, even if it meant that Wick would go free.

She moved silently over to Katera's bedside. The girl was unconscious and pale, and did not respond when Wick nudged her gently. Sedated, probably. She didn't know how many tranquilizer darts the girl had taken, but she would probably be unconscious for a while yet.

Lifting the sheet up and folding it back to avoid unnecessary friction, Wick exposed Katera's left calf. Her boots had been removed, but her uniform trousers hadn't been touched yet. The staff had been far too busy dealing with the more serious injuries to bother with anything beyond a cursory medical examination. Raising the cuff on her left trouser leg was trickier, but long-time familiarity in dealing with volatile substances had given Wick a light touch, and Katera didn't stir.

The sheath was right where she'd seen it before, and unfastening it was a quick business. She slipped it into her jacket and zipped it up before fixing Katera's clothing and sheet and moving silently away.

The dagger was harder to acquire, but the staff was distracted and the investigator hadn't made it to the infirmary yet to collect the evidence. She waited until the holocam was obscured by one of the nurses and then lifted it easily and smoothly, concealing it within her jacket and returning to her previous position next to Jor's bedside before the nurse moved again. Under the cover of his curtain, she sheathed the dagger and attached it to her own calf, hidden beneath her uniform, and took deep breath to clear her mind and calm her heartbeat. She could hide it in her room until Katera returned to her own and then give it back, and Kat would know better than to tell on her. She would have to keep to her word and trust Jor to protect her from any backlash.

A nurse rushed forward, directing him to the nearest bed, but Gabe kept walking down the line of cots, toward the back of the room. He set her gently in the one farthest from the door.

The nurse was saying something again. Gabe looked at her unseeingly. "Muraida," he said, without waiting for her to repeat herself. "Now."

The nurse hesitated, and jogged off toward the office.

Gabe found a chair, dragged it to the side of the bed, sat down. He took Sol's hand in both of his, and sat motionless, watching her face.

Sol . . .

"I love you," he whispered. "Please come back to me."

Muraida came, asking more questions Gabe didn't answer, didn't hear. Soon he was pulled away, so that they could work. Sol's hand slipped from his grasp as they pulled him back, out of the way, but Gabe's eyes never left Sol's face for a moment.

A free nurse came over to him, began to run a handheld scanner over him when he didn't respond to any of her questions. The scanner concluded that he had there were hairline fractures in two of his metacarpals, along with some bruising to the bones of his right hand. The nurse applied a brace, gave him an icepack, and mentioned something about coming in for pain medication if it was particularly painful.

Gabe was beyond noticing. He just kept staring at Sol's face.

Sol . . .

That was his first thought when he saw his niece lying on the infirmary bed, her face bruised and bleeding. It was the last thought he had before he moved into diagnostic mode, taking her pulse and testing her respiration, cataloging injuries as he found them. "What happened?" he asked Gabriel curtly. Sarah said he had been the one to bring her in. He had hoped never to see this particular pair of students in his infirmary again.

Gabriel did not respond to his question, and he asked it once more. That earned him no attention, and Muraida shook his head and told Sarah to tend to the boy. The stricken look on his face made it clear that he needed to be removed before Muraida continued his examination. Gabriel did not appear to be reasonable at the moment, and unreasonable spectators never improved an emergency room setting.

Sarah led him away, and Muraida scanned Sol for any serious injury. The medscanner said they were relatively light; no stab wounds, in any case. A slight concussion, lightly bruised ribs, a split lip, half a black eye, and bruises on her face that looked like someone had punched her. Various other bruises, but nothing broken, and most of her clothing was intact. Whatever had happened couldn't have been too serious.

He attached a few icepacks, but her injuries didn't really call for a strong painkiller. Once she woke up, they would need to keep her awake for a bit, but he would prefer that she woke up on her own to injecting her with a stimulant. She wasn't in any danger. Sarah touched his arm and told him quietly that Hunter Gabriel had several fractures in his hand, but was otherwise undamaged, and that he wouldn't tell her what happened either.

Muraida nodded grimly and stared at the Scorpion symbol on the jacket the nurse had removed from Hunter. He hadn't been notified of Sol's transfer into the SO AIT until considerably after the fact, and had attempted to get her transferred to something different - the medical track, perhaps - but Bryant wouldn't hear of it. The Scorpion students were held in considerable fear and respect by the rest of the student body, and that was inviting violence. Probable some of the Marines, looking for an easy mark.

He motioned for her to monitor Sol before he stepped away from the bed and towards Gabriel, drawing the curtain closed behind him. The break in visual contact seemed to wake the boy up, and he intercepted him before he could get up and move to the other side.

"She's going to be fine. What happened?"

Gabe's eyes moved to the curtain, stared; as though he could see Sol right through it. He wanted to tell Muraida. He was Sol's uncle; he'd helped them once, when they'd needed him, by giving him the access cards that got them the tranq rifles. Gabe thought the man was trustworthy. And more than that, Gabe wanted to tell somebody so that they could fix it for him. He wanted somebody to make this all go away so that he and Sol could be together and not have to fight anybody, not have to fear. He wanted a grownup to act like a grownup and do something about this, just once.

But Gabe didn't tell Muraida. Because he was her uncle; could he bear to hear what those boys had intended to do to his niece? Because he was a doctor; there was surely little he could do to help them, beyond patching their wounds and setting their bones. But mostly, because he was an adult. Through all the fights, all the fear, all the pain and grief, Gabe had learned to never trust the adults. They were liars. They were not to be trusted. None of them.

Nobody could be trusted. No one but themselves.

He didn't tell Muraida, because he and Sol were going to solve it alone. From now on, everyone was their enemy, everywhere was hostile territory, everything was a threat. From now on the trusted nobody but each other, relied on nobody but each other. Indivisible they were invincible. That was how they would stay.

"That isn't going to work this time, Gabriel. I want an answer. Where's her jacket?" The boy just stared at him, as if he were too dull or too withdrawn to hear the question, and Muraida checked a wild urge to strike him. He was no forensic specialist, but it was obvious to him from his cursory examination that this hadn't been an ordinary fight. Sol's hands had no bruises, but her wrists did, and her upper arms. She'd been forcefully restrained, and her jacket was missing. That drew a very specific picture, and he was damned if he was going to let it go unpunished just because Hunter Gabriel feared retribution.

"Did you do it, Gabriel?"

The scrape of metal, rustle of clothing, chaotic clinking of medical glassware knocked over and aside, and Muraida was slammed against the counter, the edge digging into his lower back as he was bent toward the wall behind him. Gabe was standing practically against him, left hand wrapped around his throat, eyes burning.

He spoke each word like a sentence by itself. "I. Would. Never. Hurt. Sol."

Gabe glared into the man's eyes, unmoving. His hand did not release the man's throat.

"Doctor?"

Gabe's peripheral vision picked up the nurse standing a meter off, holding a tranq pistol. Nearly point blank; she couldn't possibly miss.

Except where a Scorpion was involved.

The gun wasn't in her hands no longer; it was pulled so fast that she was dragged forward, and bumped into Muraida, who'd not even had time to raise a hand to his now-released throat. In a single smooth movement Gabe removed the traq cartridge, dropped it on the cot beside him, and sent the pistol spinning across the floor.

Gabe's eyes returned to Muraida.

Gabe moved toward her bed immediately, sliding into the chair he'd placed beside it and taking her hand between his again. Gently, his thumb passed over the skin of the back of her hand. Just a faint sensation, but a memory like his, he remembered perfectly well from his own Infirmary visits how precious and strong such faint sensations could be to a semi-conscious mind.

Slowly, as if moving too quickly might disturb the air and harm her further, Gabe leaned forward, lowering his face toward hers, his breathing forced to remain slow and shallow. His lips brushed hers, so very faintly, the ghost of a touch, a phantom caress. "Sol," he whispered, breathing warm air onto Sol's lips.

He waited. Not moving, not breathing; he would have waited a thousand years there, for something, anything.

The brightness outside her shut lids came closer as she tried instinctively to pull away. She did not want to be touched. She wasn't able to do more than tense her fingers a little. Her senses were waking with her, and she gave up trying to pull away when she felt nothing else.

Then warmth on her face, light pressure against her lips, and her attempt to struggle renewed itself with a vengeance until she drew in a breath and knew who it was who kissed her and held her hand, the only person in the world she wouldn't have struggled to get away from for touching her. The only boy she knew by scent.

The scent of raw alcohol and stale sweat floated back to her, and her heart winced. Not the only.

She tried to relax and listen to the sound of his breathing, but he was too quiet. Small pieces of the fight began to filter back to her. She'd broken someone's nose, she was sure, but inflicted little other damage. She'd fought harder after it was too late, after she knew they didn't just intend to kill her. Her stomach folded in on itself in panic and she shifted, registered the pain in her chest and arms an on her face, but it was hard to focus on things that didn't hurt.

Giving up the attempt at diagnosis, she simply lay there, working up the courage to look at the world. An almost imperceptible shiver ran through her, and she tightened her hand on Gabe's hard enough to hurt and opened her eyes, and immediately regretted it.

However she felt, whatever injuries she'd sustained, he was in far more pain. His face was pale, his eyes grim and sorrowful and lost and angry. She swallowed, but the tears came anyway. How could she have been so careless? She should have run. She could have run. Why hadn't she?

He forced himself to keep the kiss short, keep passion in check; so soon after fearing that he might lose her, it was so very difficult to separate feelings. But right now he had to remain gentle, even more so than usual. But he had to touch her, to kiss her, to convince himself that she was alright, that everything would be fine, that he could breathe again. He needed that now.

He remained close when he pulled back, retreating only far enough to give her room to breathe, and himself a wide enough field of view to take in her whole body. He'd not had time to check her injuries himself, did not know where she hurt and where she was undamaged. Later he would ask, and remember; for now, he would watch, and note any limbs being favored, any movements that caused her to gasp or wince. He didn't want to hurt her, even in ignorance; not ever, under any circumstances.

She'd said something. That she was sorry. For what, Gabe could not guess, did not even care; she'd never once done anything to him that justified an apology. Gabe shut his eyes, and smiled a sad, pained smile, and leaned forward again so that his forehead and the tip of his nose touched hers. "So am I," he said, softly. "I love you, Rebecca Solenis. Thank you for being okay. The alternative . . ." He didn't have the words. "Thank you."

There was a burning behind his closed eyelids, and a tension in the upper cheek muscles below each eye, but he waited there, unmoving, until it passed. Then he pulled back again, but again, not far, and took her hand between his. He lifted it, kissed gently, and then lowered it back down to her side and went back to passing his thumb lightly across the top.

My light, my life, I can not live without you. I am so selfish that I hope you outlive me, because I don't know what I would do without you. You bring purpose to my life; you are my reason for existing. Before you I was nothing but a machine, and I fear that I would become one again without you, or worse. Stars or no stars, I don't care anymore; you're all that matters.

Please stay with me, for as long as I last. I promise it won't be more than another eighty years or so, at max. I'll be the man you deserve, if I can be; I'll die trying to achieve the perfection I've found in you.

Lightbringer, lifegiver . . .

He began to kiss her then, and she brought her hands up wearily to his shoulders, but they just rested there. She couldn't bring herself to push him away. She loved him, and he loved her, and there was no reason for her not to want the comfort he was giving her, but he felt too...close. It was too much, but she couldn't push him away.

The attack of affection ceased, and she went limp in his arms, let him cradle her and feed her warmth. He told her he loved her, thanked her for being alright. He sounded as if he'd been in fear for her life. She knew how he felt. Even when Rabin had done nothing but rough him up a little, she'd watched him closely for the rest of the day, and she'd cradled him to sleep that frightening first evening away from the barracks, flagrantly breaking the rules to stay away from Riya.

He kissed her hand, and it was good. She felt a little better.

Turning slowly to her side to face him, she let him hold her and drew herself in as tight as she could without straining her ribs. It wasn't far, and she tilted her head so she could see his face. She remembered his face, the agonized fury she'd seen on it before they'd kicked her unconscious, and more tears broke the barrier. The mark of that anger was still there, strengthening the lines around his eyes, the lines in his forehead, the weariness of his expression. For only a moment, Sol was reminded once again of how similar Gabe could look to his father, given the proper circumstances.

What had stamped that look so much more heavily on his father's face? Regret? How could a man capable of regretting such a cowardly, vicious act against his own blood commit it in the first place?

She didn't want to know.

An unwelcome parade of pictures passed through her mind and she closed her eyes tightly, not willing to juxtapose Gabriel's face with them. Fresh tears leaked out and down her cheeks, and it took her several minutes of him holding her securely, several minutes of listening to his heart beat before she had the willpower to open her mouth and ask, dreading the answer.

Oh Sol . . .

Did she remember? And if so -- or for that matter, not as well -- how much?

And if she did not remember what those boys had done, and what they were about to do, was it better that way? How could he tell Sol that she'd been attacked and almost . . . almost . . .

Gabe didn't know how much she remembered, but that didn't matter. He'd made a promise, once, to never protect her from the truth. He'd promised to tell her everything, always. He'd lied to her once, and because of it he had almost died. After that, he'd promised never to choose for her what she could and could not know, to never again try to place himself between her and danger without her knowledge. And Gabe would not break that promise, ever. Even if it hurt him to tell her. Because it would hurt him more to lie to Sol. Just like it had then. More than words could describe.

Gabe never wanted to feel like that again.

"You were attacked," he said, softly. "Four men from the older group; Davis, Dietz, Pedersen, and Sanchez. They jumped you in the hallway leading to our room. I . . . I don't know why . . ." But was that true? Perhaps. It had certainly seemed that they had more on their minds than assault, but Gabe wondered if that had been the whole reason. Still, he could not leave anything out. ". . . but I think their intent . . . was to rape you." He held back the pain in his chest and the nausea in his stomach at saying the words aloud, and pressed on. "I don't know for sure, because . . . because I got to them first."

What he didn't say, what he could not make himself say, was: And I hurt them. I hurt them bad, and I liked it. In that moment, seeing you slumped against the wall half-sitting with those boys around you, already missing your jacket, and with one of them ready to take your undershirt also, I wanted to kill them all. I wanted to feel their blood on my hands and hear their final rasping breaths as I stomped the life out of their lungs. In that moment, I didn't just want to prevent it from ever happening again. I wanted justice. No, not even that; I wanted vengeance. I wanted them to die painfully for what they had done.

And as I took those boyes apart one by one, I relished it. Every moment. I loved the sounds of their breaking bones, their pained screams. It was music to me, because I was filled with hate. When Sanchez ran, it was all I could do to keep myself from running him down and making him share the fate of his comrades.

Their pain, their suffering, I loved every second of it.

I am a monster.

Gabe's teeth were clenched, and after a few moments he noticed that his eyes were also. He could not open them; he didn't remember how.

His eyes were burning again, and there was an odd sensation tickling his face, hot around his eyes but cold on his cheeks. Involuntarily, he brought a hand up to his face. His fingers came away wet.

. . . tears . . . ?

. . . but . . . but that wasn't . . .

Tears. They were tears.

Gabe didn't cry when his mother and sister died. Not a single tear. That initial moment of seeing their bodies inside the tangled wreck of a chopper from his place atop the snowbank, it had been too overwhelming; he hadn't been able to take it in. Those days of wandering in the snow, with only the sun and his jacket to keep him warm, there hadn't been any chance to think about them; it had been about survival then, about just making it over that next hill . . .

And then the hospital, but by then, it was too late. That frozen wasteland had left him with more than minor frostbite. It had frozen Gabe. It had frozen his state of shock into a permanent shell.

Gabe remembered reading about igloos as a child. He'd wondered how something made of ice could keep a man warm.

But he'd understood, sitting there in the hospital. His shell of ice let him keep what warmth he had left locked inside. Hibernating. Waiting for Spring. Waiting for thaw.

So he hadn't cried. Not once. Not even when he'd learned that his father didn't want custody; by that point, it was just icing. Hunter might have been capable of feeling the impact, but Hunter was dead. He'd died standing atop that snowbank, looking down into the wreckage.

So for the first time in at least twelve years, Gabe wept. Because Sol was his eternal Summer; she'd melted the ice, and rekindled that tiny spark left inside him. And today, he'd come close to losing her.

He didn't think he'd have an igloo this time. He didn't think he'd want to. He would just freeze over, and die. Like Hunter had. But this time, there would be no spark left.

He was able to fight his eyes open, though it did little good; the tears blurred his vision, and he kept trying to blink them away, ineffectually.

Gabe lifted Sol's hand again, as he had moments before to kiss it. But this time, he rested his face against it, let the tears fall against her skin. The pain inside was too awful to bear alone, and he needed Sol now. Even though she was the one who had been attacked, and he was suppoed to be strong for her now, he could not quench the hurt. And he knew of no other way to alleviate it than to seek Sol's comfort. What his weakness would cost her he could not know, did not want to guess; if he could have kept it inside, to himself, hidden so that he could be there as a comfort to her he would have. But he could not contain this. He had no defense against it.

Tears.

Gabe did not cry. He did not. It was the way of the world, the way of the universe. It was a known.

Another tear touched her hand and she sat up too quickly for her ribs to keep her down, letting out air in a small gasp that the effort tugged from her and freeing her hand to wrap her arms around his neck and pull him against her. Her cheek pressed against his, tears making her vision blurry, and hugged him tightly, the pain in her ribs the only thing that kept her from rocking him like a child.

She wanted to tell him it was alright, that he didn't need to cry, that she was fine, just a little bruised, but to tell him not to cry, to deny his tears after he had spent so long without release was something she couldn't do. For now, any hesitation or uncertainty she'd felt about close contact was gone, and she wanted only to see him smile.

She held him for a long time, their tears mingling and running into her collar, and when she moved it was to do what he had done for her so often when she cried, to brush his tears gently away and kiss him. He shut his eyes, and she kissed his lashes, brushed the tear tracks away and kissed his cheeks, and finally his lips.

When the kiss began, she did not intend it to be passionate. Sol loved Gabe, but the attack had left her strangely reserved inside, and she did not like it. She kissed him gently, but when his lips parted slightly as he kissed her back, her grip on him tightened and that reserve melted away. Now, while they were impossibly close, while she could still feel his tears on her neck, she wanted him to know she loved him.

The kiss broke at last, and she rubbed her cheek against his and clung to him, his arms strong about her even at the height of his distress, her breath falling onto his neck. Her arms were tight enough around him that her ribs hurt, but she didn't care. She wanted out of here now. There were cameras in here, and the administration did not deserve to see Gabriel cry.

Her breath on his ear simultaneously warmed him and made him shiver. She told him she loved him, and thanked him for saving her. And then she asked if they could leave.

The doctor had done what he could. There was no reason to stay. All Sol needed now was rest. And he knew that she woudl rest easier in friendly territory.

"Yes," he said, as he bent at the knees to slip an arm beneath her back and into the bend of her knees. He started to lift her, but the almost imperceptible wince made him stop, and he adjusted his arm. "Better?" She nodded, and he lifted her and moved them toward the door. He thought he heard the door of the doctor's office opening as he reached the hallway, the doctor's voice calling to him, but the door shut behind him, and Gabe set off toward the room, cradling Sol's body in his arms like it was the most precious thing in the world to him. Which was almost true.

It only housed the most precious thing in the world, however.