Zeus ran to his room after Reeva patched him up. He looked at the planet outside the window and saw the fires that spread throughout the wilderness. His guilt ate him alive.

The door opened behind him. He didn't turn around.

You're a failure. Riley is just using you. She doesn't love you. You're a freak. No one would ever want you. I mean, who would? You couldn't protect that boy from Asher, you couldn't save your best friend.

The doubts and fears tore through his mind, and for the first time in a while, he let them. He let them destroy his feelings, his words, his actions.

Zeus wasn't the rock that anybody needed him to be. In fact, he was crumbling.

"Zeus. We need to talk." Riley's voice was stern. "Those things Asher did- why didn't you tell me?" She tapped her foot and twiddled with her hair.  "The things he did, the things he said to you, you didn't deserve it." Her voice became more and more compassionate. "You don't deserve it. You don't deserve any of this mess."

Tears began to stream down his face. "They took me to the place where I had lived in my dreams for so long-" Zeus clenched his teeth- "and he tore me down. He tore me down brick by brick and I gave him mercy. He brought up Jon and mom and dad and-"

"You stayed strong. I watched the video." She walked up to Zeus and put her hand on his shoulder and softly took off his breastplate. "You need to get this armor off of you so we can see what other damage this has done."

Zeus sighed, and rose and took off all his armor, leaving his jumpsuit on. "Why did you make me do this Riley-"

She walked up to him and squeezed him. "I'm sorry for shoving you away... you didn't deserve that. You probably feel unloved right now and it's- it's my fault. You have done nothing but save me time and time again, and you don't... you don't deserve that." 

He stood there, and then squeezed her back. "I don't want to lose you too."

She shook and cried. "You don't- you don't understand how much you mean to me. When I had heard that you had been kidnapped I- I freaked out. It's-" she sniffled-"it's like I had lost everything." She looked him in his eyes, and those big, beautiful blue eyes full of tears broke his heart.

He hated seeing her in pain. Every fiber of his being ached seeing her in pain.

"This feeling you have, it's the feeling I have whenever I see you in pain." God's voice echoed in Zeus's aching heart.

Zeus fell to his knees, unable to bear the pain, and then sat on his butt and scooted himself back to the side of the wall. He wept, uncontrollably and in pain, and Riley came beside him and cuddled him and cried too. He stroked her hair, and they both understood each other's pain.

After a while, Zeus felt a little bit better and got up and laid on the bed. Riley came and joined him.

"Whatever happens, Zeus, please make it back alive," she said, and stroked his cheek with her index finger.

"Riley, please don't get hurt. I can't bear to lose you. Alicia is on his side," Zeus said, in fear, "and I know she's going to try to take me from you. She will stop at nothing to get her way. That's why the other three Spartans from their team are dead, because rumor has it that she and Asher killed them in their sleep."

Riley stared at Zeus like he was stupid. "If anything, that pretty little princess is getting my knife shoved into her chest. That is a promise." She kissed him.

"Faux, shut the window doors. Lock the door. I don't want Reeva coming in here again and disturbing the peace." Zeus said, annoyed after he had realized that Reeva, too, was trying to be with him.

"Ewww. I hope after Reeva complete's her mission that she would go back to ONI and leave us alone." 

Zeus stared into her eyes and got lost in them. She did in his.

"What if we got married before all this was over?" Riley asked.

Zeus sat up, surprised at the question that came from nowhere fast. "We just started loving each other yesterday. Marriage is a little too fast---"

"We have to learn to live fast before we all die. Spartans go MIA all the time, and I don't want to leave without being with you for an eternity." Her eyes lit up, like she had just came up with a saying every Spartan could use.

Zeus's heart thumped quicker and quicker. She not only wanted to take it a little further, she suggested to get married.

"Well, fine. I'll have the wedding set to a month from now. I mean, we've been "together" for 15 years."

"Big guy, I've loved you ever since you stood up to Asher. Your spirit and heart and kindness are what I fell in love with, and I only blew you off at the beginning because I was afraid of what you would become." Riley stopped sniffling and smiled, kissing him on the lips shortly afterwards and cuddling up to him as he lay back down on the bed.