She is leaving me. She just asked why did I have to ruin her life. I messed every thing up, just like I always do.
"RROOOAARRRAAAAAHHH!"
My enraged and pained cry leaves my body, glass cracks in the room, and things go flying that are light enough. It's not enough to ease the pain that is filling me up inside. My shadows fly and glide around me, cocooning me in darkness.
"Master Bavarthos?" Viekar's trembling voice comes through the door.
"WHAT?!"
"Do you need anything? I would ask a stupid question, but I know you are not alright." He comments.
"NO! JUST LEAVE ME BE!" I cry out as I crumble on the lounge, knowing that I will never love another, my fate is sealed to remain broken and alone. Why would anyone want some one who is not all there anyways?
I stay there not moving, a small part of me hopes that she will come back. She loves me, she is just mad. It was an argument, every relationship has at least one big fight. She'll come back.
She will come back, right?
One day goes by, two days go by, three, four, five, six, seven, eight days go by and I have not left this room. Viekars mother brings me food on a tray and I only eat it, because if I don't and Kara comes back... I don't want her to think poorly of me. I need to shower, I need new clothes put on, but I hardly move unless it's to eat or use the bathroom.
"Master Bavarthos?" Viekar's mother brings in the tray and finds me sitting there on the lounge and the concern that was on her face at first, turns to fury. She puts the tray down and walks toward me and clutches her nose once she is a foot away.
"GET UP!" She barks at me.
I look away from her, I do not wish to move until she comes back.
"OH So that's how you want be?" She grabs me like I'm a toddler throwing a tantrum and throws me over her shoulder grunting.
"Put me down." I instruct her. "You are going to hurt yourself."
"Shut it, Master Bavarthos. I will not watch or *gag* smell you in this condition." She walks into the bathroom, walks into the shower and turns it on, standing under the water with us both fully clothed.
"What are you doing?" I finally wiggle off her shoulder and she squirts me with some liquid soap. She grabs a wash cloth that was hanging up in there, and begins to scrub, over my clothes and everywhere she could.
"OUCH!" I cry out as she scrubs me hard.
"Well you can do it, like the grown man I know you are, or I can do it. You will not leave this bathroom until you are clean and in some new clothes. Then you will go and take her the deeds to the place, stop and buy her some flowers, her favorite sweets, something, and you will apologize to her. You will get down on your knees and beg her for forgiveness in front of all her customers if you have to. You betrayed her trust and kept that from her when you knew it would hurt her, and now you must be man enough to admit your mistakes. Give her the property, even if it is the last gift you give to her. You need to try to make this right if you want a clear conscious or any hope of fixing the mess you made."
She sounds like my mother, just obviously blunt and not speaking in the old high court fashion of riddles, rhymes, and analogies. She stands there huffing and holds out the cloth.
"So am I going to wash you or are you?"
I reluctantly take the wash cloth from her and begin to strip making her squeal and run out.
I'm standing here dressed, deed in my coat pocket, a large bouquet of flowers, pacing around the corner from her shop. I'm freaking out, what if she doesn't want to see me? What if she refuses everything and never wants to see me again?
I walk around the corner and stop when I see Derek Chambers. My heart begins to beat again when I see that he is saying good bye to Etty. So I continue on my way, past Derek who looks at me oddly.
Great... Does he know I messed up? When Etty sees me she starts. "Mr. Fairchild? What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to see Ms. Langridge, of course. Why else would I be here?"
Etty looks confused. "Because she left ten minutes ago, to go see you."
"She did?" I ask shocked.
"Yes sir, she's been pretty upset the past week, did you two have an argument?" Etty steps forward. "You need to remember, Mr. Fairchild. Rakara has some tough thick armor she displays to the world, but you are her weak spot at the moment. She needs you. She's been worried about some man possibly coming here to see her and she seems awfully frightened. I'm sure if you hurry you can catch up to her before she gets on the lift." She shoos me off with her advice and I take off running.
"Thank you Etty!" I shout out to her over my shoulder, as she laughs at me running to catch up to her. I'm running down the street bumping people and saying excuse me as I go. I blast past Derek Chambers as I go, tempted to actually push him, but I refrain.
I am determined to catch up to her, I must have missed her when I went to buy flowers. I arrive at the lift, panting and out of breath.
"Ms. Langridge?" I gasp out and the guards look at each other.
"She just went up, sir. The lift will come down once she's there." A guard says and I wave him off. I find a place out of sight and snap back home.
I sit by the front door waiting for her to come. I wait for fifteen minutes and she still has not shown up. I open the door to go meet her and find her right outside the door pacing. How long has she been here?
"Rakara?"
She stops in her pacing and turns to me, tears are in her eyes. "Mr. Fairchild."
Ouch. I feel like I have been shot in the heart.
"I was going to see you." My voice sounds brittle, as I pull out the flowers for her. I have been wanting to see her so badly these past days that I day dreamed what I would do. That I would take her in my arms and kiss her, make love to her....
But the air is tense and awkward between us.
She does not say anything other than, "Oh."
I take some motherly advice and I walk down the steps and fall to my knees.
"I've missed you. I have been in utter darkness with how you left." My voice breaks, and I clear my throat and continue, "No amount of apologies will make what I did right. I am sorry though. I know that I will not love anyone other than you though, and I would appreciate the chance to make things right between us, even if it takes the rest of my life. " I crawl on my knees towards her, as tears roll down her face and a sob escapes her.
It breaks my heart to know I've caused her such grief.
"Kara, my love, I can not stand you in such pain... Please may I hold you?" I beg her.
Her sobs intensify, so I stand slowly and take her into my arms. I feel like the hollow in my heart is only made deeper with the way she cries, barely touching me, but gripping the collar of my jacket like her life depended on it. I hold her tightly and snap us inside to my room.
"Hey, Kara. Let me get you another handkerchief." I soothe her grip and pull out my own to hand to her. I pull out the deed with it. This is yours to do with as you see fit." I hand her both and she gingerly takes it from me, placing the deed down on the table as she goes to the bathroom to clean her face.
My heart wants to follow her but I stay rooted to the spot. I know she needs a little space at the moment. When she comes back out with her swollen and puffy face from crying, my heart tugs. It's also rather cute how her cheeks puffed up.
"Would you care to sit down?" I ask her motioning to the small table with chairs in one corner. She nods and we go and sit, her taking a long deep breath and sighing in release.
I offer her my hand to hold, eager for her touch. She glances at it and sighing again, she places her dainty one in mine.
"I guess I had missed you by just a few minutes from the shop today. Etty told me you had left ten minutes prior to my arrival."
Rakara looks at me and nods. Still not saying anything.
"Kara, please say something?" I beg her, her silence is making me fill with dread.
I kneel before her chair so I can look into her beautiful eyes that are still full of hurt.
"Bav..." She takes another deep shuddering breath and she inquires, "Have you ever heard of the Bloody Cogs or just The Cogs?"
"Yes, the gang you told me about that was the reason your father met your mother. What about it?" I think I know where she is going with this.
"Well, I belong to that gang." She sits up a little straighter and clear her throat, bracing her self as tears roll silently down her face.
"I know." I tell her. "I've known since the beginning, before we went to the play together."
She looks shocked, "What? How?"
I take her hands in mine, "The night you were down in the club district, I offered to escort you home."
"How? I was wearing a wig. A mask. I changed my voice!" She exclaims.
"Yes, but I know your scent. From the second you walked by, I knew it was you. I didn't bother to ask you, I figured that you would tell me in time. I also know that your people deal in a much more organized way than a gang. More like a secret society. I know the government wants to find the leader, that the illegal tungsten ore is funding your projects and drugs are too."
"What?! How do you know so much?" She is shocked, her eyes wide in disbelief.
"Mr. Wheelwright, was one of your drug peddlers. He referred to a woman known as Lady Cog, who wore a mask, that he would do business with. Don't worry that was information only for me not your government."
Her hands trembled in mine. "You are not upset with me?"
"I knew you would tell me when you were ready."
She takes her hands back and flings her arms around me, landing on her knees in front of me, holding me tightly breaking down again in sobs.
"I'm sorry, I love you. I did not mean it when I said you ruined my plans. You changed them, not ruined them and I wouldn't have it any other way, if it meant I would not have you."
"Oh Kara..." I breathe out heavily, returning her embrace. I hold her tightly. My arms saying the things I can't express with words.
I pick us up off the floor and let her wipe her face off some more. Picking her up in my arms, I take her to the bed. We sit there, me holding her in my embrace, and just look at one another, happy to get over this hurdle, together.
Once her tears have dried and my heart enters it's state of ease again, I ask her a question that I need to.
"What would you think of someone whos soul was ripped in two?"