M A K A Y L A

This is what I know.

I know Alex killed her father at a young age. I know she never speaks of her mother. And now I know where all the pieces existed in one place before she trained herself to be the most powerful ruler in the Underworld.

As the water ran over my skin I watched the warm gold dangle from my neck.

Years of dirt and darkness bled off it along with the rest of the dust from my skin. The steam only made it gleam more. It was barely scratched. Barely worn. As if it had only seen months of use before its wearer abandoned it.

I pinched it in my fingers and scanned the rare metal. Gold like her eyes.

Did her mother have the same trait? I knew pigments started diverging when people opted for iris modifications centuries ago. It was a sign of class divide. Upper sector dwellers never modified their appearances. They wanted pure genetics. Untainted.

To me they were the most beautiful eyes I'd ever seen. Natural or otherwise.

I shut the water off and dropped the ring back to my neck. I pulled a towel through my hair and dried my body slowly. There was much I wanted to ask the woman on the other side. But we still had an edge of something between us. Doubt. Perhaps hesitancy. I didn't want it but it existed. But Alex knew how to separate her feelings when it came to giving me space–she would cross the other side of the city if I hinted at it.

I pulled a t-shirt over my head and a pair of soft sweats that hugged my legs.

The mirror dehumidified automatically and showed my blue eyes back to me. All the dark lines under my eyes and blood was gone. My skin looked more human again. I ran my fingers through my hair before deciding to leave it loose down my back.

Just talk. There is nothing wrong with talking. Alone. Without Proximo's crude remarks to hide behind.

I pushed off the cool stone counter and the door slid open.

Alex was toying with a hologram on the low table. Her hood was gone and every other piece of clothing that made her Scorpion. Now she was Alex with a hand propped under her chin as she appraised old looking pieces of furniture.

Her eyes met mine and she swiped it away quickly.

"Makayla–"

"You don't have to stop." I answered easily, taking a seat across the table and placing my legs over the arm. She regarded my easy posture a moment before her eyes ventured back to her wrist and she drew up a 3D image of a very old clock.

"That is... different." I noted, setting my feet down and scanning the image closely.

She pinched the air and rotated the ornate clock for me to see the face.

"A grandfather clock." She said with the wistful twist of her lips.

"What is the box for?" I probed, noting the carving down the long wooden frame.

"It's like a machine. Nothing digital. They run themselves." Alex answered, before flicking a hand to the next item of the past.

I flinched.

"Is that armour?"

She grinned this time and it warmed my entire body.

"Yes. A replica of one when weapons were much more crude." Her eyes went past the hologram of the shining suit of armour and met my eyes, "–the sort of weapons you favour."

"Sabres are an art form." I smirked carefully back.

"I know. It's why you have a few new toys down in the training room."

"You didn't." I deadpanned, leaning eagerly forwards.

"Some very. Old ones." She answered, leaning back into her chair with a smile that made me want to cross the space.

"Show me?" I answered.

"I thought you'd never ask." She drawled, rolling onto her feet and offering me a hand. It was so simple and I didn't stop to think it through as I slipped my own into hers. They fit perfectly. She pulled me to my feet and lingered in place. I measured a breath and looked between her eyes as she dropped my hand. 

She pulled away before I could find the words to tell her this was okay. More than okay.

I followed her lead out of our quarters and to the lift. Her wrist holo glowed frequently but she ignored it entirely. The Empress could have been desperately trying to broker another deal and we wouldn't have known about it.

The doors slid open on the shining dark floors. Regular agents battled for dominance and fine tuning their skills with every available weapon. No younger recruits lingered at this time. Proximo usually broke them in the early hours. I focused on Alex's arms that drew her t-shirt close to her shoulders. A few murmurs and nods passed us but it was otherwise quiet.

"I think we'll honour these with something more fun." She quipped over her shoulder as she approached a wide weapons rack. It glowed under her touch as she typed in what she had in mind. The entire wall shifted and began rearranging itself.

I gawked as knives and close combat items disappeared from view and swords of many shapes and forms slid forward to us. It finally stilled and an intricately carved sabre with a bronze pommel stared back at us. It was practically antique. Used like it had seen the glory days of when the sport was still the height of fashion–

Alex ripped it from the wall and presented it to me hilt first.

"Try it."

"Are you sure we can use these? They're incredible but I don't want to damage it–"

"Please, Makayla. We've got a dozen more to get through. It's practically criminal if you don't use them." Alex answered, turning for the wall again and pulling a gleaming rapier off the wall.

"Is that–is that an iron rapier?" I demanded in shock.

Another ancient metal long lost through overuse. It had the trade mark signs I had learned about before I was given my first sword–but it was never iron.

She disarmed my own sword and replaced it with the one in her hand.

"Well if you're going to complain about it..." She smirked, nodding me forward.

I turned in place and she walked out ahead of me towards a set of double doors I had never noticed at the end of the hall. I flexed my fingers around the handle unable to help myself. It was magnificent. Though heavier than any sword I had trained with.

The doors slid open to her and revealed motionless white forms with limp robotic arms. I raised an eyebrow as Alex spun the sword in her hand with a thoughtful expression.

"Arm room! Exercise five!"

Swords entered through the floor and the robots drew them into a neutral stance. I sucked in a breath at the row of a dozen robotic training figures.

"This is new." I managed to get out.

Alex grinned back at me and her eyes darkened.

"Allow me to show you."

She turned back to face the line of motionless faces. She breathed in slowly and drifted the sword from her left side to her right. I stared. Lost in the elegance of the movements. The way the metal winked from the lights above and below us. Then she stilled the blade.

"Engage."

A robot shot forwards at a run. It was disturbingly fast for an AI. But so was Alex. She dropped onto her knees as the robot's swing sailed high over her. But as soon as its target drifted out of sight it targeted the next available threat.

Which was me.

I stared in shock as the sword drew an arch for my body. My parry was late and sloppy from the shock. But my next was not. I dismissed a high swing before slipping into a familiar stance and sending the sword forward from my front foot through its forehead.

The machine sparked before crumpling before me in a satisfying fizz of burned electronics.

I dropped my sword stance and met Alex's amused expression.

"That was fantastic."

"I have to agree, Xavier."

"Make it two."

She grinned wickedly and commanded the room again. Two robotic heads snapped up and swords levelled in fighting stances.

"You want the right or the left?" I quipped, as they rushed us.

"Doesn't matter to me–" She ducked a swing and parried the next, meeting my eyes over the blades, "–As long as I can watch a royal at work." She winked.

I matched her grin and sent the next blade away from her body. The robot adapted targets and engaged me with a commendable level of skill. We met blows of each adversary move for move, switching targets faster than the AIs could keep track of. At one heated exchange I felt my back hit Alex's and she laughed behind me.

I smiled shaking my head. We may not have the simple things in our relationship down. We may not do intimate dinners and go to the park... But she sure as hell knew how to make me feel alive.

I pushed off her back and took the sword double handed to sever the head entirely.

It exploded in sparks and dropped to the floor. Alex front kicked her assailant out of her space and glanced down at my work.

"Makayla. That wasn't very elegant." She smirked, dodging the next swipe at her neck. I placed my sword over my shoulder as I watched her get attacked again.

"But it was so much fun." I retorted, enjoying her lose patience with the robot and close its guard much faster than it could calculate. She stopped the sword arm with one hand before bringing her own up through the body rendering the entire thing useless. It dropped before her and she appraised my pose.

"I'm glad you think so."

I glanced at the bot at her feet.

"Can they actually kill in a training exercise?"

"It wouldn't be this fun if they couldn't." She said casually.

I scoffed and crouched before the sparking metal.

"Not even the imperials had these. It's impressive for training..."

"Ah, but training with the real thing is always better." She said walking around me slowly. I rose from my crouch at her low voice and felt my skin prickle.

"Why is that?" I asked slowly.

She drifted nearer, moving her sword in her hands around me. "You have to be more creative. More unpredictable." She murmured, stopping in front of me, "And you have to learn as you fight. They can't do it as quickly as us."

"What have you learned, Scorpion?" I murmured, drawing the iron between us and placing it slowly against her shoulder. She didn't break my gaze or move an inch. She simply watched me with a look like she never wanted to turn away again.

"Say what you're thinking." I frowned.

"I can't." She answered, matching my gaze.

"Yes you can, Alex." I murmured, stepping forward until her body almost touched my own and I could feel the heat radiating off her. The gold of her eyes was as molten as the ring at my neck. I heard her sword clatter to the ground. "Tell me." I insisted.

"What if it's not the right thing to say." She whispered.

"Do you think that because of what happened... Or because you think I don't want to hear you speak to me like we still mean something to each other?"

She shut her eyes and clenched her teeth. I left the sword against her shoulder. The weight of it was starting to feel heavier by the second.

"You will always mean everything to me, Makayla." She opened her eyes. "Nothing is going to change that–even if you stop feeling the same."

I pulled the sword off her then and flung it away.

"Does that sound right when you say it? Do you really think it is that simple to lose what I feel for you?" I demanded, tracing the edges of her face with my gaze. "In my darkest moments you were there, Alex. At my absolute worst when I pushed everything human out of me I still saw you everywhere. I know you know that because I'd catch you looking at me when you're supposed to be pissed off. When you had a combat serum running through you–you still looked at me like I was the most important person on that rooftop."

She shifted her weight and pulled her arms behind her back with a look edging dangerously close to amusement.

"Kuzo's?"

"Obviously." I rolled my eyes. "So much for combat focus."

"It removes emotion it doesn't make you blind."

"It didn't fully though, did it?"

She watched me a moment.

"No." She murmured. "It's not that simple losing what I feel for you."

"So, here we are again." I smiled, glancing down at her militant stance before me. It was almost like she was desperately trying to control her own body.

"Yes." She got out.

"I'm not pointing a gun at you this time." I noted, feeling the few inches between us all the more.

"There's always a sword."

I shook my head and pulled my hand up to the side of her face. Very carefully, I grazed the side of her jaw up to her temple. Alex didn't breathe. Perhaps she thought it would break the moment or perhaps she didn't want to allow herself any liberty at all. But I was growing tired of any divide between us. We had survived too much to give up.

"I can't promise I'll never hurt you again." She whispered, scanning every line of my face like it would vanish before her. "I can't promise you'll never hurt me. But I can be there for you when you feel like breaking or you want to decapitate robots just for the hell of it–" I smiled as I listened to the words that started to make my body whole, "–when you don't want to face the world or you just need me near you. I can make those promises, Makayla. I'm not perfect. I'm not even good on my best day but I know you make days worth living. You see a version of me I want to become."

"Alex..."

She finally broke her stance and took my face in her hands so she could really look at me. Deep into the furthest parts that no one else got to see.

"Do you still want all of the hell that comes with me? Because there's a list–"

I pressed my thumb over her lips and stopped her. Her words had already burned their path directly into my heart when my mind was already made up. But she was Alex and she had a way with them all the same.

"I want the scars. I want the difficult past and the ring that came with it. I want a hot tempered, furiously beautiful, golden eyed woman that doesn't know when to time her jokes–and I want you to start seeing you as I do. It's not a version of you, Alex. It is you." I took an unsteady breath and placed my hands around her neck. 

"You didn't have the brightest start but that didn't stop you from picking flowers in sky gardens or breaking into ballrooms just to get my attention. You've killed people–but you've also saved countless others. You pull recruits from hopeless conditions and call it business but is it really? I bet Lee's family alone could live in Sector 10 with what you're giving him. How many others are there?"

"That doesn't make me a saint–"

"Who the hell is? We can only do what we can for those around us. That's all anyone can ask. Anyone calling themselves a saint is a liar anyway!" I scoffed. "I would know. It's what they all believe in Sector 1."

This made her lips curve.

"The rich aren't good people?" She drawled.

I pulled her neck closer and felt the heat from her skin. It had felt like centuries. Too much space and time away from the shape of her lips and the familiar warmth of her. That scent that clung to her clothes that was just Alex. Now here it was right in front of me. This beautiful disaster. 

"Say what you were going to say..." I breathed onto her lips.

She finally took a deeper breath in the scarce space left and pulled the warmth of her hand against my cheek. I closed my eyes and leant into it.

"It wasn't words, Makayla." She finished simply, before securing my face like I had wanted her to the moment the space had begun its vacuum between us. Bringing me to her like I knew she wanted to–for a long time before this.

She kissed me. 

Words wouldn't do it any justice.

Maybe that's why she abandoned them all together and acted. All the words had been said. We both knew what we were–all the faults included. Our fathers were monsters. Our family were in the past and our future was not promised. Not much could rarely be promised and she wouldn't pretend otherwise. But she would try and I would try. No one was a saint or truly a sinner in Merridian.

And we didn't give a damn either way.