[attr="class","illeana"]

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

[attr="class","illeana i"]she looks conflicted.

how much does she tell him?

would it change anything?

somewhere, deep down in the recesses of her mind, she craves the release of the burden of her actions. it will never come, not even with her using his kitchen as a confessional in a church.

there is no salvation for her here, there, anywhere.

"i have murdered people since you died."

sea hoennians as self-defense, but still.

"i risked hoenn's safety and the commissioner's plan before the meteor came because i was chasing palkia."

whatever religious façade she placed on that could not hide the stench of selfishness.

"i would do it again."

her eyes are sharp when they return to him, honed into pointed blades against a whetstone.

"is that good to you?"

she's aware, vaguely, of her tone. it's more biting than she intends.

ALEXANDER STONE

[attr="class","illeana"]

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

[attr="class","illeana i"]"yes."

it's automatic, as if there's no hesitation.

and she shouldn't, realistically, view him as someone on a pedestal but she always has and she probably always will.

"you're the best person i know."

even now, with time eroding everything that they were or were going to be, her mind would not change.

ALEXANDER STONE

[attr="class","illeana"]

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

[attr="class","illeana i"]he fires off instances, circumstances, events.

and while each concept beats against her walls, she does not waver.

she justifies him, his actions, his choices.

"you still have better morals than most of this region."

and she doesn't touch upon risking everything for love. not even as the nagging sensation to ask if he meant for her rises like bile in the throat.

"you're still good, alex."

she is not. there are things she cannot come back from.

ALEXANDER STONE

[attr="class","illeana"]

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

[attr="class","illeana i"]she's defiant. even here, even now...

"no, you're wrong."

he cannot change her mind. he cannot alter her perception.

this version of herself is not good. it never will be good.

she's accepted that. she's made it into something useful with shaky hands striking it against a whetstone until it's forged into something more.

and that's all she had wanted in the end, isn't it?

something more. something useful. something unbent and unbroken.

maybe he'd understand if he saw her in a different light, in one not rose-colored or blinded.

maybe it's better he never does.

"why did you want to let me know, then?"

she's holding onto control with white knuckles but it's slipping.

she has never been good at wearing a mask. not in the way he is.

"what is the point?"

ALEXANDER STONE

[attr="class","illeana"]

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

[attr="class","illeana i"]"how would it come up eventually?"

this conversation digs its claws in, draws blood...

she wonders, briefly, how long either of them could last like this.

so close yet so far away.

she had felt closer to him in death than she does now.

and she swears she can hear the heart in her chest breaking a little further with each lazy second passing into the next.

her eyes drop down to her plate. untouched, save for a single bite.

"it'll change. you wouldn't have to lie then."

her appetite is nonexistent now. an anxious, nauseating knot has settled in where food should have.

ALEXANDER STONE

[attr="class","illeana"]

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

[attr="class","illeana i"]he’s wrong.

he’s so wrong she wants to throw up facts on the pristine kitchen floor.

instead, she simply pushes her chair back and moves to stand.

her expression is pained, ripped into two existences: anger and sadness. she can feel guilt creeping in, right down to the bones.

”i — we can’t do this.”

she can’t.

he’s haunted her for a year, plagued dreams and nightmares and waking reality. past relationships, current relationships… there is not a place he has not invaded.

and it’s unfair, she knows, to entertain this. unfair and selfish and horrible.

ALEXANDER STONE