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The Park, Friday Afternoon (Before Detention's Visiting Hours)

Karla had been patrolling this morning and, Mother Night, was it such a rush. The ability to do as she pleased--so long as she was obeying the rules, of course!--when she pleased and where she pleased was practically intoxicating. She'd been skulking and hiding for so long, hoarding her Craft like a miser, Bah! What kind of life was what? She should have known she was on the wrong side from the moment she'd realized she couldn't be a proper witch as long as she was with the Resistance.

She was using Craft right now, in fact. There were flamingos and the odd squirrel that sometimes took it into their head to make noises at her. Karla was showing them exactly why one didn't sass one of the High Inquisitor's most faithful. No fatalities yet, but the reek of scorched feathers and singed fur lay heavy in the air.

In all, it was a good day.

[Anyone interested in talking to/tangling with an Imperio'd Karla before Ghanima fixes her, now is the time!]

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Warren took the slap to his face. But the one reaching up to claw at him, he caught, tightening his grip enough to make damn certain she'd understand that he would fight back, if pushed, and that he was a force to be reckoned with if it came to that.

He loved her. But he wasn't going to take abuse from a pawn the same way he had, constantly, from the real thing for the past year.

"You keep telling yourself that, Karla. You go right ahead and tell it to yourself when you go to sleep at night, when you wake up in a cold sweat because you're dreaming of the penance that you believe deep down that you really deserve. You speak the words she'd want you to speak, and you torture in her name, but deep down, you're still exactly what you've always been. You're one of them."

He tightened his grip until he felt bones grind, narrowed his eyes and tried like hell to just will her into snapping out of it. And then he let go, practically throwing her arm back to her before backing away.

"And if you ever snap out of it, remember, I was the one who saw you for what you really are."

Karla was a welter of emotions: hurt, anger, fear, even a nagging sense of guilt.

"Warren," she said in a whisper, cradling her wounded arm. This was her last chance to reach him, her last chance to try and save what they had. "Warren, stop. I--I love you. Please don't turn away from me. I love you. I just want to be with you. Surely anything else, we can work through. Together. Please."

She couldn't have wounded him more thoroughly if she'd gone and stabbed him through the heart with one of his own toxin-laced feathers.

"I've been waiting a year to hear you say those words," he managed, speaking low and deep, eyes turned away. If he kept his voice low, she wouldn't hear the way he choked on it. If he looked away, perhaps she'd miss the tears that were burning at eyes that, mercifully, were already red. "To say anything beyond what sort of traitor I am. A year. And then suddenly you've seen the light, suddenly you're on my side and you want to pick up where we left off? Forgive me for remaining unconvinced, Karla. This is too much of a face-heel-turn for me to believe it could possibly be real. Either I'm dreaming, or this is a lie. But whatever this is, it isn't you."

He felt sick. So, so sick.

A tear slipped down her face. "You can't believe that I've just been wrong for a year?" Karla asked, willing her voice not to tremble. "You don't think that so much of what I've done this past year was for any other reason than for you?! Every fight, every argument, ever screaming fit was just so that I could talk to you again. Every time I struck at you, it was for the chance to touch you again. Every time I threw myself at Peter, it was in hopes that I could finally, finally forget the feel of you against my skin, the feel of you inside me. You say this is too fast, too abrupt--but really, Warren, it's been building for the entire year. I'm only just now able to unbend enough to say so."

... Damn you, Umbridge, for this. If what Karla was saying was true, this was not how Warren wanted to hear it.

He choked. This time, he choked, his composure slipping for a moment as he keened forward, trying to catch his breath.

"I'm not resistance. I could never be resistance again. But you... Karla, I never stopped wishing I could go back to you." And that line alone was a risk. Was enough to get him killed, if she were to go to Umbridge with it. He let it stand. "When you yelled, I pulled away more. When you struck me, I was struck. An Imperio spell can't take that away, can't make that undo itself. And I can't just take you at your word about it until I can see more of... of you in you."

Which meant that, as things were, they just... they couldn't be.

"I'm sorry."

She had no idea just how sorry he really was.

"You are sorry," Karla choked out. "And so am I. I'm sorry that you don't know me well enough to realize this is me. I'm sorry that you think it takes some kind of magic spell to get me to love you. I'm sorry that you don't believe in me enough to accept my love. I'm sorry that I hurt you so badly that you feel you can't."

She had more to say, insults she could hurl, emotions she could tear out. But she didn't. She couldn't make that mistake again. All she could do was fight the pink fuzziness for a moment and ask--beg--"Please, can't you just try? Hold me for a moment, look at me, and really tell me that it's not meant to be?"

"I can't do that," Warren murmured, looking at her with a face that betrayed exactly how much he was dying inside just then. "You won't let me hold you."

He turned to look down at the ground again.

"And I won't ever be able to accept that it isn't meant to be." Just not then. Not like this. "I can't breathe, Karla. I can't do this right now. Not... not like this."

Not you.

"I'm willing to let you now," Karla said, her face showing the strain of fighting off the curse even this much. "Maybe...just for a moment?"

"A moment... isn't enough."

He exhaled, something ragged and half-broken as he stepped back toward her regardless, reaching a hand up to brush fingers longingly over her cheek. And then his face fell and he pulled his hand away as though he'd been burned.

Some part of him had been.

"I'd just keep wanting more moments."

"If you turn away from me now," Karla warned, voice shaky, "you might not get another chance. I won't throw myself at you again, Warren."

Warren closed his eyes and pulled in another deep breath.

"I said that about you half a year ago."

He couldn't do this. He couldn't couldn't couldn't, it wasn't her and he was going to break her, right there and then, because he wasn't whatever it was that she seemed to think he was.

He spread his wings, then. Took another step back.

"You aren't the woman I fell in love with."

And then he flew.

A bolt of Sapphire followed him into the sky. Had it hit, it might have knocked him back down to the ground, left him bent and wingless and broken as he'd been a year ago.

But it didn't. It veered off sharply to the left to burn out somewhere over town. The wordless keen of agony, however followed him straight on.

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The Park, Friday Afternoon (Before Detention's Visiting Hours)

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