Communication - Mark 4 - Love's Light is Broken

[withamagicword]

He trudges back to his room, bone weary. So much happening, so much to do... and he misses Steph, so very much. He should call her... and why not? He flops back on the bed and sighs. Maybe just for a little while. Even Captain Marvel gets tired, after the amount of effort he has been putting out.

Billy gathers himself again and reaches out. Another four weeks had gone by, Rock time, since he had last talked with Steph. He had been busy and tired. He knows it has probably only been a day or two for her. He wonders... he is afraid to ask... but he wonders how she is doing.

So he musters his concentration and sends his mind out.

::Steph? This is Billy. Are you free to talk?::

Comments

[alwaysroomforhope]

For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright
Steph's been dreading this all day. Dreading, and expecting; but still, when the call comes, she startles, and drops the glass robin she's been cradling.

It doesn't hit the floor - she still has Bat-reflexes. But her hand shakes as she puts it back on the bedside table.

::I'm here.::
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

[withamagicword]

He breathes as he 'hears' her voice and a small smile creeps onto his face.

::How are you doing? I've missed you.::

[alwaysroomforhope]

Oh, God.

No point in drawing it out. It'll only hurt more. She can't - she can't deal with it.

::we have to stop seeing each other.::

[withamagicword]

The world seems to stop and he stops breathing for a minute, shocked, and...

::Wha--what? Why? What do you mean?::

HIs heart races as he tries to understand.

[alwaysroomforhope]

It hurts even more than she thought it would.

::I can't - it isn't - it's not fair. I can't - not to you -::

A confused jumble of images, a flash of Zuko kissing her in the forest, a wisp of desperate, hopeless confusion. Billy wants forever, and Zuko promises nothing beyond today - Billy's wonderful, perfect, steady as a river, and Zuko's a crashing mountain waterfall, unpredictable and foreign. Regret, anxiety, confusion. Confusion.

::can't give you everything - what you want. and I don't want to - don't want to lie - can't pretend...::

It isn't a case of choosing Zuko over Billy. It's a case of choosing not to give Billy her flawed, faithless self at all. He doesn't deserve that.

[withamagicword]

He cries out at the assault of images and how they felt to her and all of it hitting him at once as he rolls of his bed and sobs on the floor, heart seeming to tear from him at her words

an't give you everything - what you want. and I don't want to

::I havent asked you for...::

He is gasping as he tries somehow to grasp what seems to be rolling away from him...

::Please, god... Stephanie... please dont do this...I dont know what I did, but I am sorry!!::

Confusion and panic and fear and everything rolls in his mind as he flings the words at her.

[alwaysroomforhope]

It's like a physical assault; he feels it so deeply, she can't help but be crushed under the impact.

She can't say anything. Her throat's choked up, her brain seems to have given up under the pressure.

::i'm sorry::

[withamagicword]

He's gasping with effort and he yanks his shields partially in place, but his anguish isnt so easily shielded.

::It's... over... just like that? no explanations, no nothing? I dont understand... I dont understand at all.::

Tears are on his face and he angrily wipes them away.

::What happenned?::

[alwaysroomforhope]

::It's - it's not about him.:: She bites her lip, hard, face squished into the bedspread. ::It's about me. I can't - I still - I care about you too much to - you shouldn't have to put up with me, with someone who can't even - can't even stay true -::

[withamagicword]

He goes pale.

::What do you mean, stay true? I know ytou kissed him... again... and I dont like it... but... I can deal with that. I dont know what is wrong, or what I am not giving you that you need, but I can try...::

He is grasping at straws, grasping at ideas, not understanding... for all his maturity sometimes, he is a nearly fifteen year old boy, and confused.

[alwaysroomforhope]

She rolls onto her side, covers her face with her hands, digging her palms into her cheeks fiercely.

::you don't get it. it isn't like that.::

[withamagicword]

He closes his eyes and tries to get calmer.

::I dont understand...but, if you dont want to be with me, I wont force you to...::

It tears his heart to say it, but he does.

[alwaysroomforhope]

Maybe she can explain later. When it's not so - such a raw wound.

Wordless assent flows over the link, tinged with the tears she's still fighting down.

[withamagicword]

He closes his eyes and groans, then nods, slowly.

::Then I will never bother you again, Stephanie Brown. I love you. Good bye.::

And then... he withdraws from her mind... and knowing he has to before he weakens and comes up with an excuse not to, he reaches outward and gently pulls the connection from her, the mind bond that had kept them partially in sync for so long. One last mental touch, and then... he closed it out completely.

Once she could no longer hear him, or feel him, he collapsed on the floor and cried. He didnt feel fourteen and a half anymore. He wished he didnt feel at all.

[alwaysroomforhope]

Break, break, break
She feels the severing, a clean cut, and then he's gone - absolutely, irrevocably gone.
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
- Billy? Wait -
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
But he's gone, and there's no resonance to her thought - it's going nowhere but her own head.
Will never come back to me.
"It's for the best," she murmurs, and sits up, fitfully, and her fingers close on the cold glass bird on her bedside table. "It's better for him."

Crash.

[withamagicword]

On the Rock, Billy cries, and outside, storms rage in the Chaos, and lightning from nowhere crashes with thunder.