Episode Five, Part 5:
S i s t e r

I wish that I could carry him, 
but this is our ungodly hour. 

Agony wailed out of Kodiak and Quill at the confession, their world shattering into a billion pieces at their feet. 

"How?" Kane asked. Nothing more, nothing less. 

"This visions," Wynn deplored, "just like I told you. She had one and it led her out of camp... We found her, but it... But it was too late." 

"How did she die!?" Kane hadn't recieved a clear answer. Not enough to believe Wynn, despite the raw misery he was witnessing. 

"A seizure, most likely..." Sol spoke from beside him, not wanting Wynn to panic and give a misleading answer. "We tried giving her the serum, but it stopped working. She had a seizure when we rescued her at the labs, another after Ares passed, so it's the most likely explanation. She had been bleeding from her nose. Whatever you did to her slowly killed her from the inside out." Sol hoped that none of her people would pick up on the second seizure she mentioned, fearing that it would give the game away. Thankfully, everyone seemed to be too caught up in processing Elara being dead to focus too intently on what the Sovereign said. 

"Where is she now?" Kane asked. "Wynn, why aren't you with her?" 

"The rest of our group took her body back to Basilisk," Sol continued to answer, despite Kane looking to his son. "We knew out people were out here. We came to find them." 

"Why did you come all the way out here? You could have just radioed them..." Kane searched. 

Sol shook her head, wiping away her tears as her anger seemed to grow. "Because telling these people - who care about her more than you could understand - that Elara is dead, isn't exactly something you confess over a radio. Her brother's here," she pointed over at Quill, "and Kodiak, and the people from her Bunker. Trust me, we weren't planning on telling them like this." 

Kane back away from the Sovereign, unable to find something to argue about. Sol was incredibly smart and managed to have an answer for everything that came her way, not even letting her lie falter for a second. 

"No! Wynn, you're wrong..." Quill choked, unable to get a decent breath of air. "She's fine. She has to be! You're lying... You're wrong." 

The feeling of seeing his brother in so much torment was as close as he could remember to watching Ares be swept from the dams. The dams that they were all standing beside. All Wynn wanted to do was get to his brother, hold him, promise him that everything was fine, but he had to break his heart. 

He shook his head, salty tears drizzling down onto his lips. "I'm not," he croaked, misery-sunken eyes locked on Quill. 

There was emotion raging in every direction; Kodiak heaving on his knees, Bas frozen in shock, Rhea pacing around as she tried to figure out her next steps, never truly prepared for her Heir to die. 

In front of Wynn, Kane's eyes narrowed as he looked back at him, completely enraged that he had let something happen to Elara. He raised his hand up, slamming his palm into his son's face, hoping it would sting even a tenth of the burn he knew his stare left. 

Wynn gripped onto his cheek, slowly turning back around to face his father. He could feel Sol's hand on his arm, worried if he was okay, but it wasn't the physical abuse that bothered Wynn. It was that Kane didn't explode in the same way when he heard that Ares had died. That he knew if anything happened to him or Quill, Kane wouldn't care. 

"You were supposed to keep her safe!" Kodiak yelled, not sure if he was screaming it at Wynn or Sol, just wanting someone to be held accountable. The power in his agony was tearing through him, and he thrashed his arms around, trying to get out of the restraints. 

"Kodi-" Sol called out his name, losing her voice before she could finish. 

Kane huffed bitterly, marching over toward the young Sovereign and bringing his gun up, no one knowing what he was about to do. 

"No!" Sol screamed, her voice bleeding desperation, alerting Kodiak to the danger behind him. But before he could calm himself down or even move out of the way, Kane swung the weapon down, driving the grip of the gun into the back of his head. 

The Sovereign fell unconscious immediately, crashing against the dirt. Somehow, a few tears still managed to spill from his eyes, rolling along his face and down to the ground beneath him. 

Even though he was hurt, Sol couldn't help but feel relieved. Foremost, Kane hadn't shot him which was the first thought on her mind as he had walked over to her, and secondly, she knew that the next time Kodiak woke up, he would be safe at Basilisk, discovering the truth that Elara was alive. 

"The only reason..." Kane emphasised, fiercely pointing a finger at both Wynn and Quill. "The only reason I didn't kill him is because..." he choked on his emotion, pursing his lips together for a moment. "Because I knew he loved my daughter... And Elara loved him." 

Wynn drew in a sharp breath, glad that the small trace of humanity left in his father was enough to spare Kodiak's life, but it wasn't enough for Wynn to forgive him. 

His father strolled over the Rhea, completely unsteady. "She's gone." 

"She's can't be!" Rhea snapped, losing all control. The fear in her heart was real and despite all her motives, she was riddled with grief. "She's the Prophet! She's survived everything, just like the scripture declared! She survived everything! This isn't possible. I know she's the Heir-" 

"She is," Kane nodded profusely, refusing to let Rhea convince herself otherwise. Almost instantly, it had turned into an attempt to plead for his own life. He worried that returning to The City of Targo without Elara would be cause for his execution, especially considering how many of their people they had lost along the way. 

"She's dead, Kane!" Rhea spat, stepping forward into him, causing the weaker man to stumble backwards. "And your sons must pay!" 

As Rhea drew out her gun, pushing past the older man, Sol called out a name. 

"Aeryn!" She yelled, giving the cue for the doctor to drop the canister, consuming everyone in a fog of knockout gas. 

Atlantis held her breath, immediately running in the opposite direction at her sister's scream, waiting for the cloud of gas to pass. 

But instead of running, Sol held her breath, diving onto Wynn beside her and pushing them both to the ground. She didn't know if the gas had worked on Rhea before she pulled the trigger, only that she had to jump in front of Wynn and save him from potential harm. 

After a few seconds, the Sovereign peeled her eyes open, still feeling Wynn underneath her. The fog had passed quickly, and she wasted no time in sitting up, grabbing onto Wynn's shoulders and scanning over him, terrified that somehow, the gun had gone off and fired the bullet into him. 

"...Wynn?" She whispered, Aeryn and Atlantis carefully approaching once it was safe, worried about what was happening. 

Slowly, the boy peeled his eyes open, taking a gasp of air. "Yeah?" He coughed, softening under Sol's distressed gaze.  

Sighing in relief, Sol leaned down and hugged onto his body tightly, euphoric that he was alive. "I thought she shot you," she mumbled against him, latching on a little longer. 

A tenderness overwhelmed Wynn, and he wrapped one arm around Sol, using his other to prop himself up into a sitting position. 

"You jumped in front of the gun?" He asked, pulling away so he could see her clearly. 

Sol nodded, taking her away from his. It wasn't a big deal or even a revelation. She would do it a thousand times over, no matter her outcome. 

Sol went to stand up, trying to follow Aeryn and Atlantis as they made their way over to the sleeping bodies, but Wynn held onto her wrist, keeping her with him for a minute. 

"Thank you," he whispered seriously, then, allowing a smile to tug at his lips. "But please don't ever do that again." 

Sol rolled her eyes, pulling herself up this time without any resistance. "Don't tell me what to do, Wynn," she joked, laughing softly at her remark, finding the humour in it. 

Wynn smiled softly, but he couldn't shake the sensation he felt in his chest, lingering in place for a moment as he watched her join the others... 

As Sol reached the two girls, her eyes scanning over everybody to make sure they were all out, Aeryn turned to face her. 

"What now?" 

"We disarm Targo first. That way, if they wake up early, they won't be able to attack us. Once that's done, work on getting all the ties off our people. I'll call Joren so he can come round with the vehicle, help us load everyone on, and take us back to Basilisk." 

Aeryn nodded, beginning to follow orders, and even Atlantis found the strength to help. 

As Sol stepped aside to radio Joren, Wynn made his way over to Quill, carefully freeing his hands from the restraints their father had tied around him. He brushed the dirt off of his shirt, lingering beside him for a few minutes, all that pain coming back to him. 

"I hope you forgive me soon," Wynn whispered to him. 

"He will." 

Wynn stood up, startled by Sol's sudden appearance at his side, and continued to stare down at Quill for a couple of seconds. 

"I wish he could have been left out of this. I wish we didn't have to do this so soon after..." 

Sol sighed, knowing he was talking about Ares. "We'll take the route closest to Atlantis' bunker. If Aeryn can get him to wake up, he can go with you to see Elara." 

Wynn was grateful, but there was someone else he was just as worried about. "What about-" 

"He's hurt," Sol exhaled, looking over at Kodiak sorely. "Your dad knocked him out before the gas. I want to be there when he wakes up. Just me and him so I can tell him that Elara's okay. I know he'll probably hate me after this, but I just want a chance to explain." 

"He won't hate you," Wynn murmured back, echoing similar words to what she had just told him. "As soon as he's with Ell again, everything between you two will be fine. If not, I'll make sure Elara knocks some sense into him," he laughed, relieved to see her give in to a smile.

After he had finished assuring her, Wynn stepped over the bodies, stopping at the one he had been searching for. His dad. 

Sol followed after him, and as Wynn looked down at his father, a part of him wished that he was dead. 

"Ares would still be alive if he never came back..." 

Sol didn't say anything for a moment. She just listened, promising her undivided attention for him to spill his heart out to her. 

"Why couldn't he have died with the other people in my family when you raided the Bunker? Why couldn't my mum have, as well? It would have spared all of us from so much pain, and we wouldn't have had to know what they were capable of," he confided in Sol. "I have nothing left for them both except this anger, and it eats away at me. It'll never go away. Not completely. I have to live the rest of my life with this heaviness because of them." 

Sol moved in front of him, obstructing his view of Kane, but his eyes didn't meet hers. 

"Surely if those things stay with you, then everything you feel for Ares, and everyone else you love, will as well, right? It's the silver lining." She told him. "People leave, but never completely. No matter who they are. You let them in and they're a part of you forever. That's what makes us human." 

Wynn was at a loss for words. Even against the most impossible losses and hardships, nothing was ever too much to stop her from getting through to him, to make him believe that the brokenness in his chest couldn't be fixed. 

He wanted to say something to her, thank her for everything she had done, but they were interrupted. 

"Remind me again why we're not killing them?" Aeryn asked, removing the last weapon from one of Rhea's guards. 

"Because," a voice answered, emerging from the trees. "Once their people realise that you've killed their leaders, the only thing they're gonna want to do is kill us." 

"Joren!" Sol beamed, sighing in relief. She hurried over to him, sinking into his warm embrace. 

"Good job at keeping her alive," the older man looked over at Wynn. "I know she doesn't make it easy." 

Wynn looked down momentarily, running a finger over her initials on his hand. "She's the one that saved me," he confessed, looking over at her. "Again." 

"Bound together..." Joren chuckled to himself, pleased with his words as he pulled away from the Sovereign. 

"I didn't catch that," Wynn said, wondering what Joren had muttered. 

"Nevermind," Sol interrupted, knowing exactly what he had been talking about. It was what he had told her when they were walking to Basilisk one time and he noticed how Sol couldn't take her eyes off of Wynn in worry. How he told her that people were sometimes bound together without knowing why, only that they could never be separated after meeting... 

Sol continued to change topics, moving over to the first of her people who was closest to the vehicle. It was Fenn. 

"Hopefully when they wake up and realise we didn't take this opportunity to kill them, they'll remember that Elara is 'dead,'" she made quotation marks with her fingers, "and consider their options. With nothing here to fight for anymore, we're hoping they'll head back to their city. Still, expecting an attack is the smart thing to do. I hate to point it out, but Rhea seemed pretty angry at you for 'letting this happen' to her Heir," Sol made a slight joke out of it as she glanced over at Wynn. The fear of Targo was still there, but the worst of it was over. At least, that's what she told herself. 

Five // Part Five
You let them in and they're a part of you forever.

This chapter had a lot of soft moments in it, so I hope you liked them!

25/04/20