He had done a horrible thing. This is not a surprise, for his life is mostly a long procession of horrible things. He should not be surprised at it, not anymore. Leopards can’t change their spots, and Garbage is damned to hurt the ones he loves. Even when he tried to spare her, when he tried to fall on his own sword to keep her from the knife-blade of loving him, that had failed too, hadn’t it?
If he’d spoken up when the memories first returned, would she have ended up in the void?
Either way, damned to hurt her.
He will not forgive himself, but this is not a surprise, either. Forgiveness comes easy to him when it’s for others, but comes rarely when it’s to himself.
But his own despair is set to the wayside because she says his name, reaches out to him, and he lets himself touch her, drops to his knees to touch more of her, her cheek, her neck, anything of her. He is desperate, in this way, the way a starving man doesn’t realize the extent of his hunger until the first bite.
He lets himself fully settle beside her, still touching her – maybe he won’t ever stop touching her – and does not answer her question for a moment. She has surprised him again, see – he’d expected more fury, more disappointment.
Maybe she’s too tired.
Maybe forgiveness comes easy to her, too.
“Agetta,” he says her name, first, maybe because he needs to say it again. To remind her that he knows who she is.
“I promise,” he says, though he hopes desperately there will not be a next time. Lips to her mane, he speaks again.
“I love you,” he says. He fights the urge to keep apologizing. Instead, he asks that heavy question, the one weighing him as he thinks of his own stupidity and an endless, aching void.
“Can you ever forgive me?”
@Agetta