Amanda, Manuel - Saturday morning
Oct. 29th, 2005 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_daytripper posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsAn end to many things. Aamnda eavesdrops on this conversation between Lorna and Remy and doesn't like what she hears one bit. Unfortunately it's Manuel who intercepts her.
Amanda lay her hands on the cool glass of the bathroom mirror, framing the face reflected there. There was no way she was getting out of this room alone and down to medlab, she knew that. Ten days of thinking and planning and going over every spell she knew had yielded that conclusion - perhaps if she had access to her spell components, she'd have managed an invisbility spell, but there was still the security system to consider. She didn't doubt they'd calibrated that to detect heat signatures, or hell, even magic - Moira had more than enough data on her power for that to be possible. And there was Cain, still guarding the door, for all she knew. He wouldn't hesitate in smashing her into pulpy bits if he caught her, even if she had been involved in saving his life too. Her fingers curled slightly against the glass, trying to close into fists, and she pulled them away. Calm, serenity, concentration, that was what she needed here. Her breathing evened out as she watched the mirror unfog, sweaty handprints fading. The talk with Betsy had only highlighted how much time she'd wasted, how little time she had left. How much she'd let fear and hope keep her lingering here, waiting for something that would take the choice away from her, either being sent away or something happening that would let her stay...
With a snort, Amanda shook her head. That bridge was burned. Nuked, even. The only thing left to do now was decide what it was she'd do when she left. Laying her hands on the glass again, she focussed on the space between her hands. Scrying wasn't easy, and she hadn't really done it since Asgard, but she'd changed since then. Power wasn't an issue, not any more.
The mirror fogged again, but not with the heat of her hands or her breath in the cold bathroom. "Show me," she whispered, the command more of a plea. She had to know how he was, that she'd done the right thing, that it had been worth it... The glass shimmered under her hands, and an image began to form, indistinct at first, just washes of colour. Medlab white, of course, and stainless steel, and reddish auburn that had to be Remy's hair. But there was green as well, smudging into the auburn, and Amanda frowned, pushing the spell just a bit harder. The image resolved, clarified, and between her hands was a tiny, perfect picture of Lorna lying curled in Remy's arms, heads close together as they spoke.
"No." The word was more breathed than spoken as something twisted nastily inside her chest. Sound, she had to hear what they were saying, had to know. Gradually words registered, faint and tinny like the sound of someone else's headphones on a train, but she could make them out:
"...to do, Remy. Because you're right. I do love Alex and I can't imagine trying to live without him. But… I wasn't lying. Malice was relying on how you felt to convince you but she can't fake what I don't feel. And I don't know what to do about the fact that I love you."
"No," Amanda whispered again, face contorting. "No, Remy, you can't, not after what she did, please." But his words came across painfully clear.
"Dat's not something dat Remy have de answer for. Might be a little biased too. Sometimes Remy look at you and think his heart going to burst." And then as Amanda watched, he cupped the side of her face and kissed her softly. The gesture, the same gesture he'd done to her the night she'd gone to him, undid her, and hurt exploded into rage.
"NO!" she screamed, dropping her hands. The mirror exploded into fragments, the image of the two of them shattering into thousands of pieces. Broken glass showered the bathroom, slicing at her clothes but leaving the skin beneath unmarked. Glass crunched under her boots as she turned and fled the bathroom blindly, seeing only that kiss, the way he held her, the naked emotion in his face...
It was all for nothing.
Amanda burst out of her room, intent of going somewhere, anywhere, she didn't rightly know where, just away A part of her coldly observing students fleeing from her approach, shooting her looks of fear or dismay or disgust. But the majority of her mind was focussed on what she'd seen, what she'd heard.
No matter what she did, what price she paid, she'd never be enough. Not for Remy, not for Manuel, not for Nate, not for anyone. They'd always want someone else, someone less trouble, more normal, more stable...
Less her.
There were no tears - those had dried up days ago.
Manuel was aimlessly wandering. He was having a bad time of things - the link Would. Not. Shut. Up, even around the blocks he'd put in place around it. Stupid things were still far too porous for his own good, and he suspected they had been for months. It would explain quite a bit, he thought morosely. But most of all, he was thinking of Amanda. Sure, she'd hurt him. Physically and emotionally. But he also thought of Xavier, and of Samson, and on their insistance that forgiveness was one of the most powerful emotions on the planet. That forgiveness could set him free, that forgiveness might - maybe - lead to healing.
Unusually for him, he wasn't really paying attention to the empathic input - he'd been keeping his walls sky-high, he did not especially want to feel much these days - nor the input from his eyes. Thus, he'd managed to blunder straight into someone who was also not looking where they were going. Probably because they were backing away from someone in a close approximation of gibbering horror.
"For fuck's sake, get out of my way..." Amanda growled in frustration, coming to a stop and pressing her hands to her eyes. The fear, the panic... it might have made someone else proud and pleased to see people cowering before them, but it only made her feel sick. Like the monster they told her she was. I have to get out of this fucking place. The thought was almost desperate. Then the hapless student finally moved away, leaving her a clear run of the hallway. Clear, that is, except for one person, probably the last person in the world she wanted to see. Guilt and anger rose up like bile in the back of her throat.
"Manny." The single word was a choked whisper.
Manuel's attentions snapped into focus with a speed that almost made him sick. "Amanda?" he choked out, just looking at her. She looked like shit - skin and bones and too many emotions to quickly identify rolling off her in waves, but what struck him the most was her perfect, alabaster skin, visible through the shredded clothing. Quite unlike the scarred-up wytchbrat he knew (and not just in the Biblical sense!) but almost _exactly_ like someone else he knew (and not just in the Biblical sense). "Well.." he said, kicking himself for having missed it before. It was so _obvious_!
That one word was all it took. He knew, and while she was worried and guilty and afraid and angry and all the rest of it, most of all she was relieved. The secret was out.
Only now it would have to be dealt with.
Taking his sleeve, she pulled him into the rec room, next to where they were standing. Better to at least have some semblance of personal space here. And all the better to have this out without physical or psychic interruption, she threw up the shielding spell on the doors and windows. It wouldn't hold forever, but it would hold long enough. Enough so that they could have this out, for once and for all. "So, you know now," she said, letting him go, looking up at him with eyes too large and too dark. "What now?"
Manuel looked down at Amanda and shrugged. "Your move. This is your play, you tell me how you want to play it. But if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say you're getting ready to rabbit. Running away - it's what you do best, after all." he said, and then mentally kicked himself between the eyeballs. Way to go, asshole. "I just want to know one thing - why'd you go to the Lady? What bait did she use to entice you?"
"I'm gone any way - they're expelling me, remember?" Amanda replied, expression closing off. Sure he had every right to be angry at her, but that didn't mean she had to let him hurt her. Not any more. "She gave me what everyone else promised and no-one delivered. The thing I've been working on all these months." Reaching up, she lifted the amulet between her fingers. "A cure." Her hand closed around the pendant and she yanked downwards, snapping the cord. "I'm free," she told him tonelessly, feeling anything but. "No more withdrawals, no more need, no more restricting my power so I don't go off my head. All I ever wanted, and she gave it to me."
"At what cost?" he shot back, keeping a close eye on her and jacking his shields as high as he dared and still be able to bandy words with her. What does she get out of the deal? A new pet? A battery?" he asked, and then shook his head. "That's it! Like returns to like, and you can't teach an old bitch new tricks. You're her coppertop! I would think you would be tired of just being a battery after Rack, but I guess it's all you think you're good for."
Amanda shook her head. "If she wanted that, she didn't have to cure me, she could've just grabbed me off the street same as she did to Alex. Hell, having me still be a junkie would've worked in her favour. She doesn't want a battery, she wants..." She paused, and then made herself say the words. "A Knight. That's the deal. She helps me, I work for her. For a year. Purely business."
Manuel sighed. "You have no head for business. Besides, don't these contract deals always end badly for the petitioner?" he asked, leaning up against the wall. "You're better than that. I know you are. You have a place here - even if you did kill Frank thoughtlessly to save Remy." he pleaded. "And whatever happened to the girl who wanted to beat her problems on her own? Huh? What happened to her? From where I'm leaning, you're running to the Lady and begging her to solve your problems. You always run, Amanda. Now it's time to stand and _fight_ for what you want!"
"Sure I have a place here," she said bitterly, far more bitterly than she intended. You saw them..." She waved her hand at the hall outside, where a small crowd was beginning to gather, watching with concern and curiosity. "Couldn't get out of my way fast enough. And Nate... He thinks I should have died healing Remy." She shook her head. "I don't belong here, Manny, they've made that fucking clear. And I did try, did fight this thing, only it got bigger 'n me and Meg got hurt because of it. I did what I did to get cured, and while I'm sorry for what happened to Frank, I'm not sorry for the rest of it."
Manuel translated that into plain speak. "So, in other words, you're giving up. Waving the white flag, running to hide behind that monster's skirts. And they're _scared of you_ because you showed them that you were perfectly willing to _sacrifice their lives_ to save someone else. That's not a good transaction, Amanda. You always run, Amanda. That's always been your problem. You had a shit childhood, yes. Welcome to the club. But you ran from that, and got picked up by Romany. Then you ran from her to us. Then you ran from us back to your birth family. When they wouldn't have you, you ran back to us. Then when you fucked all that up, you ran from us to Her. It's so pointless, _Gemile_. You even ran from your identity!"
"Identity? What fucking identity? The power source or the street kid or the good little girl doing what she's told?" Amanda barked out a short, mirthless laugh. "I don't know who the fuck I am any more, Manny. I've got so many people pushing me this way and that, wanting me to change, to be something else, and you wonder why I can't value myself? Even you didn't want me, you wanted someone you could push around, change into something else, be your fucking redemption. If it wasn't for the bloody link and Askani telling me you'd enslave the world if I didn't try and help you, we wouldn't have lasted three fucking weeks!"
Manuel stared at her for a moment, and risked double-checking. She ... believed that. With all her heart. "Wow." he said, still stunned. "You really believe that. How _could you_ believe that?" he asked, still stunned by the sheer audacity of it, how her words ripped into him like poisoned knives. "And building your identity is what we were always trying to get you to do! It's not our fault or our doing that you fought the process every step of the way! Or that I let you hide behind me, or behind Angelo, or behind Nathan, or behind Domino, or behind anyone _else_ who tried to show you kindness!"
"An identity that worked for you," she retorted. "You wonder why it was important to me to hold onto Pete and Remy? Because they understood me! They didn't want me to be something I'm not, they didn't make me feel stupid for the music I like or the clothes I wear or the things I like to do. They just..." Her throat closed up, and she had to stop and take a couple of gulped breaths before she could go on. "I can't win, can I? I ask for help and you tell me it's hiding behind other people. I do things my way, and you tell me I should've let the people here help."
"All that tells me is that you have a Thing for assassins!" he shouted at her. "You fuck Pete too, just to keep things even?" he asked nastily. "Is that how you level the scales, whore? Sex for understanding? Or do you want to be a hired killer like they are? Given your performance in Medical, I'd say you're well on your way to learning how to kill. I thought you were more than that, that you could be so much more. Someone I wanted to know, someone I could share everything I was with!" he said, but then Xavier and Samson's words floated back to the forefront of his mind.
Forgiveness was powerful medicine, and he ached inside. He didn't want to hurt her, although he had already. He wanted to understand, to forgive. But she was making it so very difficult. "I don't want to sit here and trade barbs with you. There's something I want you to know, something you're not going to understand."
"Say what you really think, go on," she retorted, beyond angry now. The jibe about Pete had hit hard. "It looks like it's not just me showing their true colours now, is it, Manuel de la Rocha. Going to offer me money for it, like your fucking father did?" Outside the ring of faces was growing, and she could see phones being reached for, teachers summoned, and she pushed harder with the shielding spell, reinforcing it. "Say your piece and then we can finish this bloody farce of a relationship, yeah? That's what you want, isn't it?"
"I've moved past him." he said, taking a deep breath. "I've also abandoned that name for a better one. I didn't pick de Guzeman out of a hat. It was my mother's name." he said quietly. "But what I wanted to tell you is that... I forgive you." he said. "Completely. For Frank, for Medical, for our hot words here, for everything. I forgive you." As he said it, he felt the burden on his heart lighten, the dark malaise evaporate under the healing light of love. He also dropped the bond blocks, so she could feel it too. "I love you. It may not seem like it sometimes, but I do. I know you can feel it, and I know it frightens you sometimes. But it's true. Stay. With me or without, your choice. Say the word, and I walk away and leave you alone in body and mind. But stay. Don't do this."
"You forgive me," she said flatly. "Well, that's nice. You know what? None of this was about you. Hell, not even Remy. I slept with him 'cause it was the only way I could hold onto him, the one person in this fucking place who cared about me, not about what I could give them, or what they could make me into. Just me, as I am. Only I fucked that up, same as I do everything else." She shook her head, dismissing that thought - that way led self-loathing and roofs and spiralling back into using because feeling nothing was better than hating herself. Amanda's tone grew resigned, deeply sad. "You love me, but you know what, Manuel? It's not enough. I'm not enough, not for you. I can't be everything you need me to be, and I can't change what I am. I've tried. And I can't stay here and kill myself trying." Stepping closer, she lay her hand flat against his chest, over the mark she'd placed there. "I'm only a weight now, love, and I'm not going to drag you down with me. So I'm going to give you something."
Manuel moved to embrace her, to try to show her what it was she was so determined to give up. "You can stop running now." he said. "Please. You're not a weight or a failure. You have a tough field to hoe, I know that. But you can do it. We can help. Don't go down this quick road, the easy road. That way leads you to being your father's daugther." he said quietly. "And nobody wants to see another Rack. Please." he pleaded.
"Even if I wanted to stay, they won't let me," she replied, and he could feel the honest regret she felt. "You say I've given up on me, but they've done the same. They won't let me stay." She let his arms come around her, breathed in his warmth, the smell of his aftershave, and made her choice. She couldn't stay, but she wouldn't take him down with her. "We can't go on like this, love," she whispered, and triggered her powers, drawing on the life she could feel pulsing beneath her hand on his chest. "I'm giving you your freedom."
Manuel felt her start to claw away at his life-force. He could have stopped her - shredded her mind, used some of the nastier things he'd been taught to do to break her will. He could have even assaulted her physically. But he did none of these things. "Don't do this. I love you." he said, tears streaming down his face. If his sacrifice was the only way to make her see the light, he would give it willingly. Instead of fighting the drain, he embraced it. He gave her everything - no blocks, no shields, no holding back. He pushed all of his heart down the link and through the life-drain to her. "Please."
How could this be the same man who had only minutes earlier called her a whore? This was how it was, time and time again. She didn't doubt he loved her, but they were too damaged, too damaging, to stay together. "I know you do. But we can't go on like this, you know we can't," she repeated. He was slumping slightly against her and she held him up, the same as she always had. She knew full well he could have stopped her and the fact he didn't broke her heart all over again. "I love you too. That's why I have to do this," she whispered, and with that she stretched up and kissed him, releasing the spell she'd been constructing in her mind as she did.
Manuel's body thrashed under the force of her spell, and his mind - fractured. A kaleidoscope of images, feelings, sensations. His nostrils gushed blood under the force of it, and he wept blood mixed with tears. But still he clung to her, unwilling or unable to give her up. ~Please.~ he said in Castillian now, too far gone to bring English to his lips. ~Love never dies.~
The pain was no less for being shared - Amanda's head was throbbing so badly she could barely focus, blood running from her own nose and mixing with the tears sheeting down her face. It's for the best, prices have to be paid but not by them, never by them, not any more, babbled her thoughts, even as she pushed the spell even harder, destroying the link. In her mind, a wall of water came rolling up out of the sea, unstoppable, implacable. It came crashing down against the lighthouse that represented the link, obliterating it. When the wave receded, only scattered rubble remained.
Inside Manuel's head, the painting that represented the link from him to her smouldered and caught fire, the beachscape disappearing under the greedy flames. The frame warped and bubbled under the intense heat, and by the time the flames subsided there was nothing left save a pile of greasy ash to show that it even existed. The place where the painting once hung was illuminated briefly by a beam of cold moonlight from above, but even that faded away to nothing.
Manuel was a dead weight against her, and she let him slide to the floor, barely able to keep standing herself. "I had to do it," she choked out, sobs shaking her fame. She was still marble pale, but the gauntness had gone, her face smooth and unblemished save by the blood steadily running from her nose. "I'm sorry it had to end this way, love, and I don't expect you to forgive me, but at least you've still got a chance to save yourself."
Manuel reached out a clawed hand and clutched for Amanda's ankle, batting at her ineffectually, trying to get a grip. Carefully she pulled away, not wanting to hurt him any further. The shielding spell had winked out during the course of things, and she could sense people coming, teachers responding to urgent calls for help, although none of the students was brave - or stupid - enough to enter the room themselves.
Time was finally up.
"I probably should say something villian-y," she told the onlookers as she looked up with a ghastly grin. "But I can't think of anything. So let's just say I did and I'll be out of your way now." The remaining power she had taken from Manuel wasn't enough, so she reached out, draining every mystical artefact she could reach with her powers. Kylun's swords slipped out of her reach, but everything else, the protection charms, the touchstones she'd made in New Mexico, all of it she drained dry. With one exception - the memory matrix she'd made for Manuel. Something in her - love, loyalty, maybe even malice - couldn't take that last thing from him.
Dark energies surrounded her as she cast the teleport spell, swallowed her whole and dissipated, leaving only a scorched patch on the floor perhaps two feet across. In the centre, something glittered dully in the light.
A quartz stone on a leather cord, cracked and broken.
Amanda lay her hands on the cool glass of the bathroom mirror, framing the face reflected there. There was no way she was getting out of this room alone and down to medlab, she knew that. Ten days of thinking and planning and going over every spell she knew had yielded that conclusion - perhaps if she had access to her spell components, she'd have managed an invisbility spell, but there was still the security system to consider. She didn't doubt they'd calibrated that to detect heat signatures, or hell, even magic - Moira had more than enough data on her power for that to be possible. And there was Cain, still guarding the door, for all she knew. He wouldn't hesitate in smashing her into pulpy bits if he caught her, even if she had been involved in saving his life too. Her fingers curled slightly against the glass, trying to close into fists, and she pulled them away. Calm, serenity, concentration, that was what she needed here. Her breathing evened out as she watched the mirror unfog, sweaty handprints fading. The talk with Betsy had only highlighted how much time she'd wasted, how little time she had left. How much she'd let fear and hope keep her lingering here, waiting for something that would take the choice away from her, either being sent away or something happening that would let her stay...
With a snort, Amanda shook her head. That bridge was burned. Nuked, even. The only thing left to do now was decide what it was she'd do when she left. Laying her hands on the glass again, she focussed on the space between her hands. Scrying wasn't easy, and she hadn't really done it since Asgard, but she'd changed since then. Power wasn't an issue, not any more.
The mirror fogged again, but not with the heat of her hands or her breath in the cold bathroom. "Show me," she whispered, the command more of a plea. She had to know how he was, that she'd done the right thing, that it had been worth it... The glass shimmered under her hands, and an image began to form, indistinct at first, just washes of colour. Medlab white, of course, and stainless steel, and reddish auburn that had to be Remy's hair. But there was green as well, smudging into the auburn, and Amanda frowned, pushing the spell just a bit harder. The image resolved, clarified, and between her hands was a tiny, perfect picture of Lorna lying curled in Remy's arms, heads close together as they spoke.
"No." The word was more breathed than spoken as something twisted nastily inside her chest. Sound, she had to hear what they were saying, had to know. Gradually words registered, faint and tinny like the sound of someone else's headphones on a train, but she could make them out:
"...to do, Remy. Because you're right. I do love Alex and I can't imagine trying to live without him. But… I wasn't lying. Malice was relying on how you felt to convince you but she can't fake what I don't feel. And I don't know what to do about the fact that I love you."
"No," Amanda whispered again, face contorting. "No, Remy, you can't, not after what she did, please." But his words came across painfully clear.
"Dat's not something dat Remy have de answer for. Might be a little biased too. Sometimes Remy look at you and think his heart going to burst." And then as Amanda watched, he cupped the side of her face and kissed her softly. The gesture, the same gesture he'd done to her the night she'd gone to him, undid her, and hurt exploded into rage.
"NO!" she screamed, dropping her hands. The mirror exploded into fragments, the image of the two of them shattering into thousands of pieces. Broken glass showered the bathroom, slicing at her clothes but leaving the skin beneath unmarked. Glass crunched under her boots as she turned and fled the bathroom blindly, seeing only that kiss, the way he held her, the naked emotion in his face...
It was all for nothing.
Amanda burst out of her room, intent of going somewhere, anywhere, she didn't rightly know where, just away A part of her coldly observing students fleeing from her approach, shooting her looks of fear or dismay or disgust. But the majority of her mind was focussed on what she'd seen, what she'd heard.
No matter what she did, what price she paid, she'd never be enough. Not for Remy, not for Manuel, not for Nate, not for anyone. They'd always want someone else, someone less trouble, more normal, more stable...
Less her.
There were no tears - those had dried up days ago.
Manuel was aimlessly wandering. He was having a bad time of things - the link Would. Not. Shut. Up, even around the blocks he'd put in place around it. Stupid things were still far too porous for his own good, and he suspected they had been for months. It would explain quite a bit, he thought morosely. But most of all, he was thinking of Amanda. Sure, she'd hurt him. Physically and emotionally. But he also thought of Xavier, and of Samson, and on their insistance that forgiveness was one of the most powerful emotions on the planet. That forgiveness could set him free, that forgiveness might - maybe - lead to healing.
Unusually for him, he wasn't really paying attention to the empathic input - he'd been keeping his walls sky-high, he did not especially want to feel much these days - nor the input from his eyes. Thus, he'd managed to blunder straight into someone who was also not looking where they were going. Probably because they were backing away from someone in a close approximation of gibbering horror.
"For fuck's sake, get out of my way..." Amanda growled in frustration, coming to a stop and pressing her hands to her eyes. The fear, the panic... it might have made someone else proud and pleased to see people cowering before them, but it only made her feel sick. Like the monster they told her she was. I have to get out of this fucking place. The thought was almost desperate. Then the hapless student finally moved away, leaving her a clear run of the hallway. Clear, that is, except for one person, probably the last person in the world she wanted to see. Guilt and anger rose up like bile in the back of her throat.
"Manny." The single word was a choked whisper.
Manuel's attentions snapped into focus with a speed that almost made him sick. "Amanda?" he choked out, just looking at her. She looked like shit - skin and bones and too many emotions to quickly identify rolling off her in waves, but what struck him the most was her perfect, alabaster skin, visible through the shredded clothing. Quite unlike the scarred-up wytchbrat he knew (and not just in the Biblical sense!) but almost _exactly_ like someone else he knew (and not just in the Biblical sense). "Well.." he said, kicking himself for having missed it before. It was so _obvious_!
That one word was all it took. He knew, and while she was worried and guilty and afraid and angry and all the rest of it, most of all she was relieved. The secret was out.
Only now it would have to be dealt with.
Taking his sleeve, she pulled him into the rec room, next to where they were standing. Better to at least have some semblance of personal space here. And all the better to have this out without physical or psychic interruption, she threw up the shielding spell on the doors and windows. It wouldn't hold forever, but it would hold long enough. Enough so that they could have this out, for once and for all. "So, you know now," she said, letting him go, looking up at him with eyes too large and too dark. "What now?"
Manuel looked down at Amanda and shrugged. "Your move. This is your play, you tell me how you want to play it. But if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say you're getting ready to rabbit. Running away - it's what you do best, after all." he said, and then mentally kicked himself between the eyeballs. Way to go, asshole. "I just want to know one thing - why'd you go to the Lady? What bait did she use to entice you?"
"I'm gone any way - they're expelling me, remember?" Amanda replied, expression closing off. Sure he had every right to be angry at her, but that didn't mean she had to let him hurt her. Not any more. "She gave me what everyone else promised and no-one delivered. The thing I've been working on all these months." Reaching up, she lifted the amulet between her fingers. "A cure." Her hand closed around the pendant and she yanked downwards, snapping the cord. "I'm free," she told him tonelessly, feeling anything but. "No more withdrawals, no more need, no more restricting my power so I don't go off my head. All I ever wanted, and she gave it to me."
"At what cost?" he shot back, keeping a close eye on her and jacking his shields as high as he dared and still be able to bandy words with her. What does she get out of the deal? A new pet? A battery?" he asked, and then shook his head. "That's it! Like returns to like, and you can't teach an old bitch new tricks. You're her coppertop! I would think you would be tired of just being a battery after Rack, but I guess it's all you think you're good for."
Amanda shook her head. "If she wanted that, she didn't have to cure me, she could've just grabbed me off the street same as she did to Alex. Hell, having me still be a junkie would've worked in her favour. She doesn't want a battery, she wants..." She paused, and then made herself say the words. "A Knight. That's the deal. She helps me, I work for her. For a year. Purely business."
Manuel sighed. "You have no head for business. Besides, don't these contract deals always end badly for the petitioner?" he asked, leaning up against the wall. "You're better than that. I know you are. You have a place here - even if you did kill Frank thoughtlessly to save Remy." he pleaded. "And whatever happened to the girl who wanted to beat her problems on her own? Huh? What happened to her? From where I'm leaning, you're running to the Lady and begging her to solve your problems. You always run, Amanda. Now it's time to stand and _fight_ for what you want!"
"Sure I have a place here," she said bitterly, far more bitterly than she intended. You saw them..." She waved her hand at the hall outside, where a small crowd was beginning to gather, watching with concern and curiosity. "Couldn't get out of my way fast enough. And Nate... He thinks I should have died healing Remy." She shook her head. "I don't belong here, Manny, they've made that fucking clear. And I did try, did fight this thing, only it got bigger 'n me and Meg got hurt because of it. I did what I did to get cured, and while I'm sorry for what happened to Frank, I'm not sorry for the rest of it."
Manuel translated that into plain speak. "So, in other words, you're giving up. Waving the white flag, running to hide behind that monster's skirts. And they're _scared of you_ because you showed them that you were perfectly willing to _sacrifice their lives_ to save someone else. That's not a good transaction, Amanda. You always run, Amanda. That's always been your problem. You had a shit childhood, yes. Welcome to the club. But you ran from that, and got picked up by Romany. Then you ran from her to us. Then you ran from us back to your birth family. When they wouldn't have you, you ran back to us. Then when you fucked all that up, you ran from us to Her. It's so pointless, _Gemile_. You even ran from your identity!"
"Identity? What fucking identity? The power source or the street kid or the good little girl doing what she's told?" Amanda barked out a short, mirthless laugh. "I don't know who the fuck I am any more, Manny. I've got so many people pushing me this way and that, wanting me to change, to be something else, and you wonder why I can't value myself? Even you didn't want me, you wanted someone you could push around, change into something else, be your fucking redemption. If it wasn't for the bloody link and Askani telling me you'd enslave the world if I didn't try and help you, we wouldn't have lasted three fucking weeks!"
Manuel stared at her for a moment, and risked double-checking. She ... believed that. With all her heart. "Wow." he said, still stunned. "You really believe that. How _could you_ believe that?" he asked, still stunned by the sheer audacity of it, how her words ripped into him like poisoned knives. "And building your identity is what we were always trying to get you to do! It's not our fault or our doing that you fought the process every step of the way! Or that I let you hide behind me, or behind Angelo, or behind Nathan, or behind Domino, or behind anyone _else_ who tried to show you kindness!"
"An identity that worked for you," she retorted. "You wonder why it was important to me to hold onto Pete and Remy? Because they understood me! They didn't want me to be something I'm not, they didn't make me feel stupid for the music I like or the clothes I wear or the things I like to do. They just..." Her throat closed up, and she had to stop and take a couple of gulped breaths before she could go on. "I can't win, can I? I ask for help and you tell me it's hiding behind other people. I do things my way, and you tell me I should've let the people here help."
"All that tells me is that you have a Thing for assassins!" he shouted at her. "You fuck Pete too, just to keep things even?" he asked nastily. "Is that how you level the scales, whore? Sex for understanding? Or do you want to be a hired killer like they are? Given your performance in Medical, I'd say you're well on your way to learning how to kill. I thought you were more than that, that you could be so much more. Someone I wanted to know, someone I could share everything I was with!" he said, but then Xavier and Samson's words floated back to the forefront of his mind.
Forgiveness was powerful medicine, and he ached inside. He didn't want to hurt her, although he had already. He wanted to understand, to forgive. But she was making it so very difficult. "I don't want to sit here and trade barbs with you. There's something I want you to know, something you're not going to understand."
"Say what you really think, go on," she retorted, beyond angry now. The jibe about Pete had hit hard. "It looks like it's not just me showing their true colours now, is it, Manuel de la Rocha. Going to offer me money for it, like your fucking father did?" Outside the ring of faces was growing, and she could see phones being reached for, teachers summoned, and she pushed harder with the shielding spell, reinforcing it. "Say your piece and then we can finish this bloody farce of a relationship, yeah? That's what you want, isn't it?"
"I've moved past him." he said, taking a deep breath. "I've also abandoned that name for a better one. I didn't pick de Guzeman out of a hat. It was my mother's name." he said quietly. "But what I wanted to tell you is that... I forgive you." he said. "Completely. For Frank, for Medical, for our hot words here, for everything. I forgive you." As he said it, he felt the burden on his heart lighten, the dark malaise evaporate under the healing light of love. He also dropped the bond blocks, so she could feel it too. "I love you. It may not seem like it sometimes, but I do. I know you can feel it, and I know it frightens you sometimes. But it's true. Stay. With me or without, your choice. Say the word, and I walk away and leave you alone in body and mind. But stay. Don't do this."
"You forgive me," she said flatly. "Well, that's nice. You know what? None of this was about you. Hell, not even Remy. I slept with him 'cause it was the only way I could hold onto him, the one person in this fucking place who cared about me, not about what I could give them, or what they could make me into. Just me, as I am. Only I fucked that up, same as I do everything else." She shook her head, dismissing that thought - that way led self-loathing and roofs and spiralling back into using because feeling nothing was better than hating herself. Amanda's tone grew resigned, deeply sad. "You love me, but you know what, Manuel? It's not enough. I'm not enough, not for you. I can't be everything you need me to be, and I can't change what I am. I've tried. And I can't stay here and kill myself trying." Stepping closer, she lay her hand flat against his chest, over the mark she'd placed there. "I'm only a weight now, love, and I'm not going to drag you down with me. So I'm going to give you something."
Manuel moved to embrace her, to try to show her what it was she was so determined to give up. "You can stop running now." he said. "Please. You're not a weight or a failure. You have a tough field to hoe, I know that. But you can do it. We can help. Don't go down this quick road, the easy road. That way leads you to being your father's daugther." he said quietly. "And nobody wants to see another Rack. Please." he pleaded.
"Even if I wanted to stay, they won't let me," she replied, and he could feel the honest regret she felt. "You say I've given up on me, but they've done the same. They won't let me stay." She let his arms come around her, breathed in his warmth, the smell of his aftershave, and made her choice. She couldn't stay, but she wouldn't take him down with her. "We can't go on like this, love," she whispered, and triggered her powers, drawing on the life she could feel pulsing beneath her hand on his chest. "I'm giving you your freedom."
Manuel felt her start to claw away at his life-force. He could have stopped her - shredded her mind, used some of the nastier things he'd been taught to do to break her will. He could have even assaulted her physically. But he did none of these things. "Don't do this. I love you." he said, tears streaming down his face. If his sacrifice was the only way to make her see the light, he would give it willingly. Instead of fighting the drain, he embraced it. He gave her everything - no blocks, no shields, no holding back. He pushed all of his heart down the link and through the life-drain to her. "Please."
How could this be the same man who had only minutes earlier called her a whore? This was how it was, time and time again. She didn't doubt he loved her, but they were too damaged, too damaging, to stay together. "I know you do. But we can't go on like this, you know we can't," she repeated. He was slumping slightly against her and she held him up, the same as she always had. She knew full well he could have stopped her and the fact he didn't broke her heart all over again. "I love you too. That's why I have to do this," she whispered, and with that she stretched up and kissed him, releasing the spell she'd been constructing in her mind as she did.
Manuel's body thrashed under the force of her spell, and his mind - fractured. A kaleidoscope of images, feelings, sensations. His nostrils gushed blood under the force of it, and he wept blood mixed with tears. But still he clung to her, unwilling or unable to give her up. ~Please.~ he said in Castillian now, too far gone to bring English to his lips. ~Love never dies.~
The pain was no less for being shared - Amanda's head was throbbing so badly she could barely focus, blood running from her own nose and mixing with the tears sheeting down her face. It's for the best, prices have to be paid but not by them, never by them, not any more, babbled her thoughts, even as she pushed the spell even harder, destroying the link. In her mind, a wall of water came rolling up out of the sea, unstoppable, implacable. It came crashing down against the lighthouse that represented the link, obliterating it. When the wave receded, only scattered rubble remained.
Inside Manuel's head, the painting that represented the link from him to her smouldered and caught fire, the beachscape disappearing under the greedy flames. The frame warped and bubbled under the intense heat, and by the time the flames subsided there was nothing left save a pile of greasy ash to show that it even existed. The place where the painting once hung was illuminated briefly by a beam of cold moonlight from above, but even that faded away to nothing.
Manuel was a dead weight against her, and she let him slide to the floor, barely able to keep standing herself. "I had to do it," she choked out, sobs shaking her fame. She was still marble pale, but the gauntness had gone, her face smooth and unblemished save by the blood steadily running from her nose. "I'm sorry it had to end this way, love, and I don't expect you to forgive me, but at least you've still got a chance to save yourself."
Manuel reached out a clawed hand and clutched for Amanda's ankle, batting at her ineffectually, trying to get a grip. Carefully she pulled away, not wanting to hurt him any further. The shielding spell had winked out during the course of things, and she could sense people coming, teachers responding to urgent calls for help, although none of the students was brave - or stupid - enough to enter the room themselves.
Time was finally up.
"I probably should say something villian-y," she told the onlookers as she looked up with a ghastly grin. "But I can't think of anything. So let's just say I did and I'll be out of your way now." The remaining power she had taken from Manuel wasn't enough, so she reached out, draining every mystical artefact she could reach with her powers. Kylun's swords slipped out of her reach, but everything else, the protection charms, the touchstones she'd made in New Mexico, all of it she drained dry. With one exception - the memory matrix she'd made for Manuel. Something in her - love, loyalty, maybe even malice - couldn't take that last thing from him.
Dark energies surrounded her as she cast the teleport spell, swallowed her whole and dissipated, leaving only a scorched patch on the floor perhaps two feet across. In the centre, something glittered dully in the light.
A quartz stone on a leather cord, cracked and broken.
