Concomitant

/kənˈkämədənt/

noun

a phenomenon that naturally accompanies or follows something

"Melissa, will you just listen to me?" Luke questioned as I scoffed for the millionth time at him. I shook my head, not even beginning to understand how someone could do this and leave all of their loved ones behind without a word. How could Ashton do that? Most of all, why would he do that?

My hands ran through my blonde hair, something I had picked up on from Luke throughout the years, signaling that I was under immense stress as I paced around the small room that I had been informed was my quarters for the next few months. As I finally found my courage to look at Luke, I was struck with an odd curiosity about him.

From the time I had entered the room to now, I had been informed that Ashton had been sent out here from the beginning with only Luke and Calum knowing of his true whereabouts. After that, I had found out that Ashton was the one to recover vital information to move forward with the war, which was handed over to Luke quickly upon arrival.

That left the question of why I was here. Clearly their secret exchange had no involvement of Moira and I, so both of us had been adamant in asking why we were present. At first, the only answer we received was that it was for our safety, which gradually turned into being for the well-being of everyone involved, which only escalated further.

Finally, the truth came out when I had been pestering Luke within the confines of my room, knowing that he would fall apart after a few minutes alone with me in this house. I had been right in my assumption of that, but I couldn't have been further off base as to what we were being hid out here for. Never had I thought of the reason we were truly hid.

"So you basically are trying to protect me from a group of rebels?" I asked him, shrugging my shoulders absentmindedly as I glared at him once my facade was over. My anger skyrocketed as I found myself running my hands through my hair at a more furious rate. I understood Luke's protective nature, but this — this was overstepping his bounds.

"What possessed you to think that this would be a good idea?" I asked, raising my voice as I felt the flames come out of my head. Meanwhile, Luke was grimacing and attempting to calm me down with soft hand motions and an even softer tone of voice that would say compliments every once and awhile while I shook my head aimlessly.

"You don't get to think that being sweet will get you anywhere with me," I seethed at him, hitting his chest with my fingers as I found my body pacing the room when I wasn't throwing an unnecessary fist into his chest. My rage was in full motion by the time he began explaining that Ashton could not come out of hiding because this was our 'safe haven.'

Laughs erupted from my throat as I just stared at him incredulously, not understanding how he thought that this would ever be a good idea. Sure, Luke hadn't known that Riley would die so soon, but how did he think Ashton felt knowing that he wasn't there in her final moments?

I couldn't contain my anger as I stared at the blonde haired boy in front of me, not recognizing any piece of him as his blue eyes searched mine with love still appearing prominent in them despite all of his broken promises. Nothing disgusted me more than watching him struggle to gain my acceptance while fully knowing that he was in the wrong.

"Why?" I asked him, finding it especially hard to speak as my throat shut up in response to the welling up tears in my eyes. He said nothing for the longest time, leaving me to try and interpret what he was thinking as I was clawing my way out of this purgatory that I had dug for myself. How was I supposed to live with myself knowing that I had been an accessory to this?

"He was in danger, Lissa," he muttered under his breath, moving his kinking curls out of his face while I was stuck staring at him with nothing but distaste filling my soul. "And the Code didn't seem to be enough for our efforts in the war," he muttered under his breath, attracting my attention automatically with the mention of the only thing that I despised more than this war.

The Code was what began this whole power struggle. Had the White Coats not created such a code then our men wouldn't have died, I would not have been taken, and so many innocent lives would have been spared because I would not have been around to cause the White Coats to look for me. That one code was the cause of my endless suffering, and Luke was saying that it wasn't enough.

How could my endless suffering and the loss of over half the people in my life that were important to me not be enough to set everyone else free? Why was I suffering if the Code wasn't enough to save all of the people under the White Coats regime? I could be living the life right now, yet here I was in a world of pain because of that damn Code.

"You sent Ashton to go get something else that could have possibly been a death warrant?" I asked him, not believing my ears as I watched his face fall. I knew it was true when Luke could no longer meet my eyes with his own baby blue ones. That was when I had to look away from the man that I loved and try to find some sort of solace within myself.

"Melissa, if you would listen to me," he began, stopping in his tracks as I spun around, tears welling up within my eyes and my nose running from the thought of Luke sentencing a man, one of his best friends, to make a mission that could kill him. Luke basically signed his death certificate and they were both oddly okay with that.

Nothing appalled me more than watching as Luke struggled to understand why I was so mad with his actions. Was he seriously that blind to what could have happened to Ashton? Or was he just too concerned with his own priorities to consider that the boy he sent off to die had a little sister depending on him and waiting for him to return.

"I knew what I was doing when he left," Luke stated, taking a step closer to me with open arms as though to signal that he was still the same man I fell in love with and promised to marry not even a week prior. "And he knew too," he whispered, making sure that I heard the quiet words before his arms were suddenly around me, wiping away every stray tear that I felt stream down my cheeks.

Luke, while being one of the most complicated men that I had the pleasure of meeting, was the most beautifully simplistic of them all. He wanted the best for his family and friends, which resulted in him taking risks. While I was never one to take risks, he was a person that had been raised to that exact thing, making him the ideal candidate for this.

There was still that lingering fear within my body though. That lingering fear that Luke would lose his sensitivity and morals along the way of trying to do what he had been trained to do, which would mean that he would become the man he despised all of his life. I did not want him to be his father. Luke was far too precious to be anything like that man.

My thoughts were those as he held me close to himself, the smell of his cologne resonating in my nostrils as I found myself falling apart under his touch. Luke's heartbeat took over my hearing as I felt his chest move up and down lightly every so often as he took a breath. Corresponding to that, short spurts of air would release from his mouth, causing me to be able to feel his breath against my cheek.

"Me," I whispered lightly, never having received a real answer from him before concerning the subject of myself and Moira's whereabouts. "Why am I here?" I asked him, watching as his eyes grew panicked slightly and his hand moved to scratch the back of his neck nervously as he had a habit of doing.

I furrowed my eyebrows at this, not understanding how Luke could be so open one moment and then reserve himself the next. While I knew it was his leadership qualities taking action, knowing when to shut himself up instead of allowing everyone to hear every little plan, but I hated it when I became the target of his military operative skills.

While Luke and I had obvious home and work restrictions, I knew that this was something Luke never considered to be work, this was just 'his attitude.' However, as I stared up at him, I began to notice how different he was acting now than any other time we discussed something like this. He was quiet, almost too quiet, and never once would he joke about something, almost as though he were afraid to.

"How much danger am I in?" I asked him, tracing delicate shapes upon his biceps as he released a deep breath of air. I held my breath, not knowing how this would end for either of us as he began to cover up his attempt to hide my danger from me. Everything within my body screamed to let him protect me, while some lone part inside of me said it was now or never to learn of my danger.

His blue eyes were hard and glassy as he looked up to the ceiling as though he were asking God to grant him the strength to go through with this plan; however, I knew by the look on his face, he was cracking under the pressure of my questions and he would not last much longer. Despite all of this, I grew more worried with each passing second.

Even though I knew he would never tell me unless I kept pestering him, I kept doing so until he spoke out the words I wanted to hear uttered. In spite of knowing how much they would hurt me and the effect that they would have upon me, I wanted to know about why I was here, more specifically, why Moira was here.

Still nothing came from his lips as I found myself stepping closer and closer to him, trying to get his attention, little did I know that I already had it. I knew that look in Luke's eyes meant that he was mentally debating telling me the real reason for my stay with Ashton, throwing around stories of his own mental instability or his belief that Moira and I should have time off due to Riley's death.

Nevertheless, he came around and told me his reasoning, sitting me down on the bed as his hands took mine in his, gently tracing shapes upon them as though he would never touch them again. That was Luke's personality, but each time he would do something like that, I caught myself thinking the worst as though it really was the last time I would touch his pale skin.

Memories always seemed to to flash before me when Luke would do something like that. The moments from long ago when his hair was still quiffed or the times from last year when he would hold my body so close to his own at night in fear that I would relive yet another night of my captivity.

"They are trying to kill you," he finally spoke up, keeping eye contact with me as he spoke each word and made his way to his overarching statement. "And I can't," his words stopped flowing, his emotions overcoming his tough facade as I tried to calm him in vain. This was the real Luke, the Luke that I thought had left me not so long ago when he was so stoic walking through the woods.

"I can't lose you Lissa," he whispered, lips finally coming into contact with mine as I kissed him back, forgetting about the fight that we had just hashed out moments ago. Despite his inability to communicate sometimes, I still loved the muscled and blonde haired boy sitting beside me, making it impossible for me not to give in and kiss one last time before he left me in that house for months.

Although I had known about his plan at the time of his departure, that did not make those times easier as I found myself crying in my sleep at night from going too long without contacting the love of my life. Moira was the same way having been left by Calum with the same explanation I received, only I knew better than Moira being hated by the people, they just wanted to make it look realistic by two going missing as opposed to one.

So it was just us three: me, Moira, and Ashton in a cabling for months with no outside communication except the odd cryptic message from Luke or Calum that only Ashton was allowed to read. Those months just about killed both Moira and me.