Stronger Together chapter 166

Getting home I was exhausted. Even my insane body had limits and  apparently running across town at three hundred miles per hour was where  I hit my wall. When I got home I asked Kara to draw me a medicine bath.  Every muscle in my body was screaming at this point, honestly it was  almost nice, I'd sort of forgotten what it was like to hit my limits. I  didn't count klurkor anymore because even Kara could wear herself out  doing that.

Raven came in to sit with me while I soaked,  and I couldn't help but smile at the sight of my girl. "Hey babe. Missed  you like crazy today. I know for a fact if you'd been there those  people in the park would have been fine." I was still smarting over the  stupidity of letting those innocents get blown up. Today had been a  mess, and I was conflicted on whether to be happy I'd managed at all or  pissed off I'd failed so badly at parts of this clusterfuck. Chastel was  a bastard even after he died. "But enough about that. You told me how  Andi and Barb were doing and all the others, but how are you?"

She  smiled softly at me " You did your best.I can feel that. No one could  expect any more from you. You saved a little girl and brought her home  to her parents too, and that's not nothing. Don't second guess yourself.  As for me..." she blew out a long breath "I'm fine. Not great but fine.  Feeling so much of this guilt and hurt and pain is awful, but there's  balance there too. Pride and love and comfort that keeps me going.  People are complicated things but sometimes they're complicated in a  good way."

I was touched she had admitted that. Back when  we first got together she would have just pushed it down and denied it.  She'd come so far over the course of our relationship, she'd always been  confident but now she was at peace too. She radiated a kind of serenity  that just made everything around her better, and it had nothing to do  with magic or empathy. Every time we were together I was reminded of how  much I loved her and how amazing she was. I saw her blush slightly and  look away and had to tamp down a chuckle at how shy she got when she  sensed things like that.

She laid down on the plush bath  mat next to the tub, not feeling like getting in but just wanting to be  with me, and I let my arm hang out so we could hold hands as I leaned  back and closed my eyes, soaking in the medicinal properties of the bath  and just enjoying our time together as I healed, both physically and  emotionally thanks to her presence. Sadly it didn't last as long as I  would have hoped and after only about an hour I finally drained out all  the medicinal power in the water, leaving it totally clear.

Whether  it was the steam from the water making her drowsy from the warmth or  just exhaustion from the day's activities Raven fell asleep on the  carpet. I contorted myself like a damn cat and climbed around behind the  toilet to avoid getting her wet as I got out (slipping and smashing my  elbow into the corner of the sink as I did because being one third  godsteel does not make slippery bathroom tile any less frictionless) and  toweled myself off before picking her up once I was dry enough to carry  her back to our bedroom.

Once  I had her tucked in I put on clothes and made my way down the hall to  Barb's room, knocking gently on the door. My tired redhead opened the  door, dark circles under her eyes and face pale, clearly exhausted. I  wanted to tell her to go back to our room and sleep, but I knew once I  talked to Andi and left the other woman would need to sleep herself and  after such a traumatic day even I was going to have nightmares, and I  wasn't kidnapped and held against my will. I gave her a quick kiss on  the forehead and moved her gently aside as I stepped into the room.

Andi  was sitting at the window, her pale skin washed out by the moonlight  and her eyes hollow. There was another chair across from her where Barb  must have been sitting and I sat down in it. I followed her line of  sight to find her staring at the moon, which I suppose was fitting for a  werewolf. I thought about what Andi was feeling, what Raven had said,  and what she would need. What I could say to make my friend feel less  broken. I took a deep breath feeling my way along the line of  conversation I wanted "Jean Chastel is dead, and it's because of you."

Her  eyes snapped off the moon and over to my face, and she smiled wanly  "That's sweet of you to say Cam, but I didn't do anything and you know  it. I just got captured and held like a useless idiot." Her voice  started shaking "I got grabbed by the same person who killed Kirby and I  couldn't do a thing about it, couldn't avenge him. He just stood there  in front of me, telling me all about the things he did to the person I  loved most, and smiling that horrible smile. I couldn't touch him. So  no, if he's dead it isn't because of me. It's in spite of me."

Her  tone was raw and the shaking of her words was obviously just on the  edge of tears, but I ignored that because I knew she would want me to. I  stared out the window like she'd been doing so I wouldn't see her cry.  The depth of the self loathing in those words broke my heart, and I  considered following Raven's advice and making her go to a therapist,  but that isn't something you can do for someone if they aren't willing  to do the work. Andi didn't just hate Chastel, she hated herself, she  blamed herself. For what I didn't know, but I was pretty damn sure  whatever it was wasn't her fault.

I  chose my next words very carefully "Chastel was too much for me. I was  useless. I was stronger than he was, but it didn't matter. He had me  over a barrel every step of the way. He kidnapped a little girl to force  me to keep going long after I wanted to stop. He was going to kill her  in the end, force me to watch because he wanted to break me. He said he  would kill her fast or he would kill you slow. But he couldn't do that  because you were gone. You gave me an opening that he didn't know I had  and I used it to put him down like the mad dog he was. I couldn't have  done that without you."

She  just laughed ruefully and shook her head "Hardly. I was the damsel in  distress remember? I just got rescued. Raven and Barb and the others  were the ones who saved me. If anything they helped you kill him, not  me. From beginning to end I was just a liability, I was a tool, I was  bait. No wait..." she giggled a little hysterically "I wasn't even the  real bait. I was the bait that distracted you while he took the actual  bait. I was a red herring." Her voice sounded so horribly fragile when  she said that it almost made ME want to cry.

But  I didn't let her have that, I just shook my head telling her the one  thing I wasn't sure if I should say or not "Chastel was a broken thing  Andi. He was a monster. He was very nearly unable to control himself at  all for long periods. During the game he took some people, and he blew  two of them up just for fun because he wanted to see how I'd react. If  you had given in, if you had broken, he would have killed you and  grabbed someone else to use as bait. He wouldn't have been able to help  himself, with someone he saw as prey weakened and exposed in front of  him."

I  turned to face her, raising a finger to point right at her "But you  didn't give in. You didn't break. You held out long enough for the girls  to find you and help you get loose and you gave me a wide open shot at  the perfect time so I could put a fucking round ball made of inherited  silver right into his smug fucking face. And let me tell you something  else Andi, Chastel didn't die smug or triumphant. He died afraid and  alone. I made sure to hurt him as badly as I could in the place he was  most vulnerable before I put him out of our misery. I did that for  Kirby, and I was able to do it because of you."

Now  I really was crying "So don't you fucking take this from me Andi. Don't  take away the revenge I got for us for my friend, don't take away the  only reason I'll ever be able to sleep at night again after watching two  innocent people turn into fucking meat paste right in front of me." I  was weeping freely now and Andi looked torn "Don't tell me you didn't do  enough, because that means I didn't do enough, that I didn't do right  by Kirby, and if I didn't do that then I don't know how I'm supposed to  live with failing those people like I did."

Sure,  it was manipulative to leverage her feelings with my own like that, but  the thing was, I wasn't lying. If I didn't save Andi then I failed my  friend, and everything that happened was a waste. Those people had died  for nothing and i didn't know if I could take that. I didn't know how  the girls lived with this kind of thing back home. The collateral  damage, the innocents who got hurt. I couldn't ask them, didn't even  have to ask Raven because she knew what I was thinking and if she didn't  tell me then she had no answer for me at all. I needed Andi to be ok,  or else I wasn't going to be.

Andi  hurled herself into my arms and broke down, crying her eyes out and I  hugged my friend as she cried out the feelings of weakness and  inadequacy that I could feel just as sharply as she was. She cried for a  good fifteen or twenty minutes before the last of the energy from her  surge of emotion drained away and took her consciousness with it into  the abyss of hopefully dreamless sleep. I didn't want her sit through  the nightmares I knew would come for us both. I picked her up gently and  carried her to the bed where Barb had the covers pulled back.

I  set her down gently and we pulled the covers over her, Barb staying  under them with her like I had expected, ready to sleep in here so she  would be nearby if Andi needed her. She looked up at me with her own  eyes bright with unshed tears, hurting from watching to people she loved  in pain and not being able to help. She mouthed the words 'thank you'  silently, and I leaned down to kiss her forehead again with a smile,  pulling her own blanket up and tucking her in too. I mouthed back 'I  love you" and got a response of the same before I smiled and closed the  door slowly to let them sleep, heading back to my room. I just hoped I'd  managed to help. I'd have to ask Raven about it tomorrow.