I put to bed the notion that this can be fixed. As the dream ends, as I lie in the aftershock, I commit his words to memory and close the door on that part of my life. If I wish to be without him, he wishes to remain there. 

What happens to me in that room, that night is a transformation of sorts. I step out of the man that was 'Nic' and step into the role of the formal 'Nicolas'. I put 'Nic' in the closet with 'Young Nicolas' and lock the door, sealing it up as parts of myself that I don't wish to revisit. 

While I don't know if I will be the same, what has been reborn will be stronger and more independent, and I promise myself that I'll be fine on my own.

Days roll by, and I begin to heal; I begin to recognize myself again. Without him in front of me, it's easier to think about what pulls us together. My dreams slowly become my own, I see him less and less though he never speaks to me again as he did that night. 

I have my hard limits, as he likes to call them, and this is one of them. As the days become weeks, I stop thinking about him so much. I stop wondering what he's doing, if he's alright, I find solace in the fact that if I'm alive he must also be and for now, that is enough. I begin to see a glimmer of happiness, I begin to rebuild a fraction of what I had.

It helps that I have plenty to do; I throw myself into my work, which is my true passion. Doing what I came here to do, doing what I was meant to do, doing what I'm now required to do becomes what consumes every moment of my conscious life, for sleep is something I avoid at all costs.

 It's a tireless job that seems to have no end, where I thought we could reset the planet, things are not always as they appear. As strained as that relationship can be, I work with Rhea to track the weather patterns and look back over the years at what the planet should be doing. 

Not only are we behind schedule, but it's also hard to convince the clouds to move in a way that makes sense. I am, but one small point and all surrounding us refuse to fall into place. They rebel, escaping back into unnecessary flood zones and anchoring there like lost sheep. I am but a shepherd for lazy vapor but it's satisfying work when I begin to see my first indications of green.

We bring in farmers, we bring in plants from the vast overgrowth of forgotten states, and jobless civilians begin to plant, grow, and tend to tender new crops. Hope blooms as life begins to flourish once more. There is something very satisfying about doing what I was made to do.

 Maybe that can be enough?  

With the need for support comes plenty of practice for Tyler and I hope to make him as versatile as I am, my desperate need for children filled with Tyler. I can pass on my knowledge to him, I can try him, I can make him better than me.  I drown myself in research as I devote myself to him and his training on top of my duties as a 'miracle worker.'

We start as early as we can, often before the sun comes up, and I find every day, I spend less and less time looking at that side of the bed where I would see so much warmth and comfort. I feel as though I've aged, and matured beyond the need for such things. 

Each small victory spurs me to push, to climb, to try harder to reach a whole new type of release. Success is the ultimate drug; doing what a solomonari is meant to do feels good. It feels cleansing to my burnt and tired soul; once I stopped treating this like a war, it became so much more than a mission. 

I've found a family in my warlord look-alikes, Gary isn't easy to deal with, but I've adopted the nature of those around me, and we just stop talking about the silence that looms when he's around. I've found a sense of peace in adopting my new title as an eco-warrior. 

As David Malcom makes my speeches for me and assures the people that we are doing everything we can and that we will win this, I find that I'm at my most content when I'm out of the limelight and I can hide away in my own world. 

As my popularity grows, people begin to turn away from the 'Great Bitch' as my companions call her. I see less and less of her face on the prompters around the city and her speeches are no longer broadcasted on the loudspeakers throughout the town. 

Things begin to become peaceful; people start to look happy.

Change has finally begun to take hold; if only the planet would follow suit. If only my family would follow suit.

Change must find me as well. 

Tonic waits in the wings and try as I might to find him appealing, nearing him in such a way is too painful and leads to horribly awkward conversations where I'm just trying to explain away what is really going on beneath my careful exterior. 

Sex is the last thing on my mind; it almost frightens me to think about it in a way. My body rejects it, rejects touch, and the thought of even touching myself begins to repulse me. As much as I love what I'm doing, who I've become is a stranger. My libido has locked itself away with 'Nic', no longer wishing to entertain my company. 

I mostly find myself wishing that my admirer would spend more time helping Helen than chasing me as the last thing on my mind, in current times, is finding someone to fill the hole that is being crammed full with life and its duties. 

Every attempt I made to get comfortable, to settle into this new person I was trying so hard to become, was thwarted by Helen. 

Unchecked, uncontrollable Helen, complicated things at every turn. It was a constant reminder that we no longer had the flip side of the coin. Her unpredictable nature had us scheduling our work around a timeline where Tyler could take her to the parking garage and let the creature run. 

The white beast was as feral as that wild creature I rode through the plains of Romanian farmlands. It wanted nothing to do with us; it wanted nothing to do with our cause. Unchecked, without a leader or a family, the creature was horribly alone and miserable, which wreaked havoc on meek Helen. 

Confronting the reality of Helen was the only way to break my newly formed oasis, to remind me of what I had given up, so I avoided her.

Despite Reid's attempts, his wolf was too afraid to go near her. I would often look at Tyler's face, distraught, and see it mirror my own for I, too, had dealt with the rage of such a powerful creature. But Tyler's fears were not for his own life as mine were. Tyler only cared about Helen and her dwindling happiness, and for that, I couldn't help but harbor the beginnings of resentment.

 How dare he play the game so much better than I did? Oftentimes, I would find him just holding her, as tight as he could, as if he was trying to keep her together as her body shook and overheated. So small, so frail, the wolf was rejecting our vile human food and our cramped lifestyle and, it would seem, rejecting her. 

A distant self remembers being told this could happen; an untrained lycan was a danger to itself.

As weeks turned to months, Marcello's prediction floated farther and farther from my mind.

 Despite Helen dying before me, things were going well, and I wanted to stay on the course. What were three months in the span of a lifetime? Six months? When it became too much to bear, I left for short stints to exterior compounds with Marcello, and it was easy to forget my home life when I could see the happy, smiling faces of those we were helping.

 Each tour reminded me of how badly I was needed in New York City, as Tyler alone could not maintain it. We chased the clouds, and I cursed the sky and its selfish hoarding of the weather in a tiny place. We work on flooding, dispersing the water to the arid regions, and redirecting channels. 

I carve out plans for dams, rivers, lakes, and ways to disperse the water where it was so desperately needed. When all else fails, when I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere, the sequence changes, and it's as if I'm starting all over again. 

There's a desperate need for team and structure, and there isn't enough of me to do it all, but I lack anyone I can trust.

 When the weight of our situation tried to crush me, I found comfort in the drink as I did when I was the King. Each time I returned from a trip to the outer cities, I returned to more disorder and bandages to cover up gaping wounds in our infrastructure. 

I become increasingly, painfully, aware that we are hardly even maintaining, let alone fixing anything, and we get farther and farther away from our goal even in our success. I feel the world is a Rubix cube; I have one side finished, and I'm too possessive to damage it to fix the other sides. 

My selfish hoarding of this beautiful, brightly colored side will be my downfall, and yet I covet it, a piece of the puzzle completed by my own hand. What if I can't put it back? What if I mess it up, and that beautiful side is lost forever in a maze of many other colors? Colors that would swallow it up with all their problems and ailments. 

Where I'm surrounded by a family that I've always wanted, I'm painfully alone.

I hang up my coat as I enter the familiar space. I hear the distant screaming in the background, and I'm reminded why I left in the first place. Going to the cabinet, I grab a bottle of wine and pour myself a glass. "You're three days late." Rhea greets me, her eyes are darkened underneath, and I know it's terrible. 

I clutch my glass, taking a long drag from the bitter liquid. 

"Got hung up at the border. they're working on a new dam, and I wanted to-" I can't lie to her. I wanted to stay away from this place as long as I could. Was I hoping Helen would die? Maybe I was hoping she'd be someone else's problem by now, that she would get loose and Mr.Malcom would take her back to the correctional facility. 

But, with Tyler overseeing her, she wouldn't get far. 

"How is she?"

Rhea shakes her head, crumbling into a barstool and running her hands through her hair. "In agony, Nicolas. She... she can't go on like this. It's cruel, it's not fair. I think we need to have a conversation with them both about what we are going to do. That wolf, I don't know what happened when V-" She stops as I tense and shakes her head in frustration. 

"Verando's wolf triggered something in her, and we can't control it. This isn't 19th-century Romania; this is the middle of New York City. We aren't equipped to deal with this." 

I don't know why she's telling me this as if I want to keep the girl. I shut my eyes at myself, stopping the train of thought. In the midst of all this, the wolf had lost her family. Gary refused to see her; Tonya had thrown herself into her research. 

The wolf was crying, screaming, begging for its family. It was painfully alone, I couldn't blame her, I felt the same.

"Have you tried drugging her?"

"Yes. She burns through it in hours. We can't let her live her life drugged. When are they returning Verando and Marisol to us? We need an Alpha, Nicolas." She asked me the question everyone had been too afraid to mention. I was finally looking happy; I was smiling, working, and holding things together. "It's been months."

"It's only been three-" I think back, counting. "Six." I sigh, curling one arm around myself as I take another drink. 

They'd been avoiding this topic, for it made me drink. I knew it was becoming a vice; I'd become sad, and I'd drink myself into a stupor until Marcello could drag me out of the house again or I could escape. 

She pulls out her tablet, setting it on the table. "There's a big storm system coming in, a hurricane. If it hits the city, with all the rain we've been getting, we will flood, and the lower regions will not survive. We need it to get redirected this way-" She touches below us with her finger. "There's a drought going on in this region. If they could get this hurricane, maybe we could get enough moisture there that they can form their clouds, and we can reconnect these two systems. It seems like the dry patches are causing the breaks in the cloud patterns." 

I watch the diagram she proposes, and I can't help but smile, the point of the conversation forgotten. 

"Rhea, that's an excellent idea," I tell her, hoping to perk her up. Yet, she isn't smiling. 

"It's bizarre that a hurricane is trying to hit us at this time of year..." She points out. 

I shrug. 

"Nothing is predictable now." I swallow the rest of my glass and pour myself another. "Tyler and I can redirect it. It'll be a big job, but the payoff would be incredible. We need to get to the coast and use the wind." This is doable and might be the break we've been looking for. "See? The earth wants our help."

"Or it wants to wipe you off the face of this planet. This thing is building strength... You need to call David and tell him this is the next miracle you wish to perform. This could get us our friends back." 

Call David. Does she not know that I talk to David regularly? Does she not watch the news? I suppose not many of us do. I watch it just long enough to see David speak most of the time. Tapping my glass nervously with my ring,  I watch the ground, curling in on myself. She deflates as she takes me in, slowly standing. 

"Let me guess. You've been talking to David this whole time, haven't you?"

 It's not that I don't want him back; he told me to leave him if we couldn't be together. I run a hand through the ends of my ponytail, leaning back against the countertop. 

There's nothing for her to say to me; there's nothing to do to convince or chastise me because she's said it all before. With a sarcastic snort, she flicks off her tablet and rests her hands on it; in the chilling silence, I hear Helen scream again and shut my eyes. 

"Well." She puts on her best faux smile. "Call David and tell him what you wish then. I think I will go home for a while as I can't take this anymore. This hurricane will be here in a few days, and I hope you know what you're doing, Nicolas, for all of our sakes. If that thing touches down here, there won't be a New York City left to defend, and if that lycan breaks loose... I don't have to tell you what will happen to Helen."

I watch her leave, downing the rest of my glass and watching the empty bottom in disappointment. Why do I even bother with wine? It doesn't slow me down; it only makes me feel like a harlot for partaking in such a classy drink in such an undignified way. I pull out my phone as I grab a bottle of whiskey and pour some into a glass, dialing the number. 

"Hey... Did you see this hurricane?.... We need to talk about business."