[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]she had come to know their own personal little bubble as the concept of home.

since his death, she has been forced to relearn it again and again. sometimes it is a person. sometimes a place.

and while her mind has always circled back to his face and the love he has shown her, she has begun to erase it over with something new.

the lights flick on and she lets her eyes wander, adjusting to the warm glow with a few blinks.

”a little bit.”

she remembers the last time they had cooked. they ate dinner later than they should have that day…

ALEXANDER STONE

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]he moves around the kitchen naturally, as if he hasn't been dead for over a year.

it's odd, she realizes, to see him as domestic as he had been before the war. she's still not fully certain if he's not just a trick of the eyes... or a clever hallucination of her perceived afterlife.

and as she settles herself onto one of the counters, she swings her feet idly.

"do you want any help?"

ALEXANDER STONE

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]she returns his smile after a moment of hesitation, of distraction still clinging to the mind like sleep clings to eyes.

"okay."

and after a few minutes, their bubble is back in place as if it never left.

it saddens her, in a way. the familiarity squeezes at her heart until she wants to hurl.

she jumps down from her perch on the counter once he approaches, hands already moving to take one of the plates from him.

"it looks so good."

it smells good, too. she had forgotten how great of a cook he was... her stomach growls at the thought.

ALEXANDER STONE

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]"are you?"

she knows, on some level, that he's telling the truth but her mind looks for holes in his statement. ways to prove they are no longer what they were.

and in the end, she might not find any.

she follows him to the table and stays quiet as he digs in. a moment later, she does the same. she gets through the first bite before letting out a soft laugh. this is familiar, this is comfortable... this is their old bubble back in action.

"that good?"

her tone is teasing, amused.

ALEXANDER STONE

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]she despises the question as soon as he asks it of her. despises the way it makes her feel small and broken and still the shell of a woman he had left behind when he left this existence.

and she knows it’s not his fault — it’s hers — but he couldn’t possibly know what has happened since he left or the pieces she’s cut herself on trying to put together some semblance of normalcy without him.

she takes too long to answer. she recognizes the hesitation in her bones. she’s afraid she might choke on it eventually.

”better now.”

lie lie lie. it’s all a lie.

her walls have come up against him for the first time in what feels like forever. time has eroded them. the road to recovery is not easy. she will make it hell for him.

”are you happy to be back?”

she looks to change the topic, to deflect and distract and hide away. as she does, she shifts in her seat and one of her newer scars, the one from sea hoenn, comes into a partial display.

ALEXANDER STONE

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]she exists in a state of silence, of processing and buffering and never quite loading all of the data.

his apology lands quickly. it comes with guilt. she can't discern if it's his or hers.

and her expression settles into a practiced neutrality, a learned trait from the man before her. she had been mirroring his expressions and concepts as if that would have kept him any more alive than it would keep him dead.

even now, disbelief still swarms the brain. it makes her irritable, irrational.

"why are you apologizing?"

everyone leaves. everyone dies.

she cannot count solid members in her life on a single hand.

"decisions or not..."

her eyes drop to the food on her plate. the pasta, while enticing, churns her stomach. she attributes it to guilt.

"i -- you would have stayed alive if i hadn't gone to meteor falls instead."

she had begged him to go with her, she thinks. she had pleaded and it didn't do a thing. she had ensured the survival of the meteor falls squadron but it didn't make a goddamn difference.

and her allegiances have always been placed on the wrong people. has she not learned from his death? is she still making the same mistake she had back then?

ALEXANDER STONE

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]her expression shifts into one of thinly veiled pain.

it's hard, she realizes, to talk about this. even now... with so much time having passed, it is not any easier than she had hoped.

the wound is still open. it will not close.

and with his confession, she's wondering if he'll bleed her dry.

she can't quite look at him in this moment. her eyes stubbornly stay pinned to her food.

"i'm not the same person i was."

the woman he had loved... she was innocent, naïve, good.

and the woman she is now is greedy, self-righteous, coming apart at the seams.

would he still love her after knowing what she's done? what she's doing? what she will do?

"i'm not good anymore, alex. i -- your love is wasted on me."

ALEXANDER STONE