“You said this was your first time leading?”  Dr. Adair asked.  “And your aunt volunteered to come with you?”

“Yeah, so?”  I finally looked up at him, but his face just looked thoughtful.  Apart from Jasper, no one had ever seen the truth.  They all kept telling me I did the right thing or the therapist saying I shouldn’t feel guilty.  I felt like such a hypocrite every time they said that.  I suspected I was about to feel that way again.

“Judah,” he said, “I can’t tell you whether that was the right or wrong action under the circumstances.  I wasn’t there, I wouldn’t know.  I can point out that you were there essentially for that purpose, your pandemonium approved of your actions afterwards, and, well, you were new to this.  Making decisions in the heat of the moment, trying to predict whether a particular action will result in violence or not – well, that’s hard even for experienced persons.  I should know, I’ve seen more than my fair share of wars and making decisions like that.  Matters of life or death being placed in the hands of a 16-year-old is a rather harsh deal, though I’ve enough demons over the years to know that’s not entirely unusual.”

 He leaned back in his chair a bit.  “But let’s assume it was a mistake.”  I was surprised, this was a new approach.  But where was he going with this?

“Your aunt chose to follow you into battle because she believed in you.  She was proud of you, you said so yourself.  She trusted your judgment enough to let you make that call – she was a leader, too, you said, for longer than you, so presumably she could have countered you in that moment if she really disagreed with you.  But she didn’t, she trusted you were making the right decision for the pandemonium, which always, as I understand demon social life, take precedence over individuals.  Now tell me, Judah,” he leaned forward again, fixing me with his eyes, “would your aunt want you to blame yourself for her death?”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.  I mean, she should, but…would she?

“Your aunt loved you like a mother.  She trusted your judgment, she was proud of who you’d become.  I think she’d be unhappy knowing that you weren’t able to forgive yourself, whether you made the wrong call or not.  Don’t you think she’d want you to forgive yourself and move on, be the person she was proud of before?”

I felt a lump fill my throat.  I – Aunt Iora had loved me almost as much as her own son.  She’d been so proud of me the day I’d been accepted as a leader, and he was right…she’d told me repeatedly she trusted me, said the judgment calls I made during practice reminded me of her brother.

“She’d probably whack me upside the head and scold me,” I admitted, my voice a little raw.

Dr. Adair briefly rested his hand on my shoulder.  “It’s not an easy thing to lose someone you love.  It never is, but when you feel responsible, it’s all the worse.  Whether or not you should feel responsible may be irrelevant here – I think what you need to focus on is what she would want for you.  I think you know she’d want you to forgive yourself.”

I felt so confused, so tangled inside.  I’d spent a year loathing myself but…wasn’t he right?  Aunt Iora would be angry at me for hating myself and be terribly hurt that I’d been so willing to throw my life away.  She’d probably have cried and made me feel so guilty for even thinking that that I’d never have done anything reckless again.

“Jasper,” I shook my head a little, trying to remember why it was right to feel this way, “Jasper agreed, though.  He – he knew, he knew both of us, he knew what happened, he blames me, too.  He told me he hates me.”

“Hmm.”  Dr. Adair’s gaze went to the sidetable where my phone was sitting, plugged in, blinking at me about missed messages.  “Is this the same Jasper I’ve noticed has tried to call you every day since you’ve been here?  And the same one who I’ve seen try to reach you several times before this, too?”

I sighed deeply and nodded dejectedly.  “I don’t answer.  I don’t want to hear him yelling at me again about killing her even if it is my fault.  He was like my brother,” I explained miserably.  “I couldn’t – I can’t hear him tell me he hates me again.”  It had broken me when he told me he hated me.  I’d lost my substitute mother and in the same moment, the only other real family I had.  Without them, I didn’t feel like I was welcome in the pandemonium anymore, so I left, leaving behind everyone and everything I knew to come to a woman who only offered frigid politeness.

“Judah,” Dr. Adair said gently, “if someone hates someone, they’re not going to call them every day for – how long?”

“A year.”

“Yeah, okay, definitely not going to call someone every day for a year to tell them how much they hate them.  That reads a lot more like he’s worried about you.  Maybe you should consider picking up next time and just seeing what he has to say.”

Yeah, right.  Worried about me.  I mean…I wished that were true, but I couldn’t forget the look in his eyes when I saw him last.

I didn’t want to see that look again.

“You have a lot to think about,” the fairy doctor finally rose when it was clear I wasn’t going to answer.  “But don’t worry about your current situation.  We’ll take care of that, we’ll just have to figure some stuff out.  For now, just try to heal.  You took some massive damage to your head so it’s unfortunately going to hurt for a while, but thankfully demons are pretty hard-headed.”  He gave me a cheerful wink.  “You’ll be fine, just don’t try to run off anywhere for a while, okay?”

I nodded and then laid back as he left.

He was right, I did have a lot to think about.

Was it okay to forgive myself for what happened?  Aunt Iora – she’d definitely want me to.  Actually, she’d probably tell me I wasn’t wrong in the first place, but I still couldn’t accept that answer.  I could, however, acknowledge that she would want me to forgive myself and move on.  She wouldn’t want me to live like this.

And what about Jasper?  I couldn’t forget his face the last time I saw him, but was it possible he called for reasons other than to yell at me?  I’d never read any of his messages, afraid I’d see more words of hate, but what if….

No, I didn’t want to think about all this now.  I was going to take a nap, then maybe in the morning – or whatever time of day, I didn’t even know what time it was now – maybe then I’d feel like trying to work through all this.

Right now my head hurt too much for deep thought.  That felt like a valid excuse, so I decided to run with it and just fall back asleep.

~~~~~

I woke up in the clinic, my head feeling slightly better, but my entire right side felt weird, like – like someone was lying against it with his arms wrapped around my waist.  Someone with white-feathered wings and blonde hair, someone who should definitely not be lying on the small hospital bed with me.

I didn’t know if I should wake him, try to escape, call the doctor, or just pretend I was asleep until he left.  What – what was the best option here?

A soft noise came from him.  A giggle.

“You’re panicking, aren’t you,” he whispered, tilting his head back to look at me.  “Well, stop.  You’re stuck and I’m not leaving.”

I swallowed and tried to remember where we last stood.  I’d – I’d tried to hurt him, and it had seemed to work.  He’d been so crushed.

Damion saw my expression and then sat up, sliding over to the little stool with a serious look on his face.  “I, um, spend a lot of time down here, you know?  Adair teaches me when he’s free, so usually during clinic hours I hang out in his office and study.  So, I, uh, hear things.”

I stared at him blankly, then it dawned on me.

The first day I’d met him, he’d eavesdropped on my conversation with Dr. Adair.  He’d done it again, hadn’t he?”

“What – that was private!”  I felt a little panicked.  Of all the people I didn’t want to know about my past, it was this precious creature.

“Judah.”  He took one of my hands in his, his expression still serious.  “I’m kind of sorry about unintentionally eavesdropping because it is rude, I know, but I’m also not because you never would have told me, would you?  I can’t believe you thought it would be okay if you just died!  What about – what about me?”  He asked, wiping a tear from his eyes quickly.  “I don’t want you to die!  I’d feel awful if that happened!  I mean, it was bad enough seeing you brought in looking like you’d been run over a few hundred times or something, but at least you were alive.  There are people who still care about you, you know, even if your cousin doesn’t.  I do.  Riven does.  Adair does.  Your aunt might, I’m not sure,” his face got thoughtful.  “She did seem worried at first but then she yelled at you when you woke up, so maybe not, but maybe that’s how demons express love, I don’t know.”

He turned my hand over, slowly exploring it with his fingertips.  “So, I guess…I want you to promise me you’ll at least try for me, okay?  Don’t give up.”  He looked up hesitantly, his dark blue eyes pleading.

I felt my heart catch and then start rushing faster than ever.  Why was he so perfect?  “Dr. Adair may have already convinced me on that,” I admitted after a pause.  “I mean, thinking about what my aunt would want.  Aunt Iora, not Aunt Catherine.  Aunt Iora would…not be happy with where I am mentally.  So, yeah, I’m going to try to work on it.”

Damion’s smile lit his face.  “So does that mean you’re going to give up on this whole ‘it’s not safe to be around me’ thing?”

I groaned.  I almost wanted to put my hands over my face, but that would require taking back the one he had, so, yeah.  “You got in danger because of me,” I pointed out.  “I’m not sure that’s still not true.”

“No, I got in danger because I was reckless myself.  You can’t blame my choices on you – they’re mine.  I chose to run outside.  I could have just asked Adair to try to convince you to come visit – he can be pretty persuasive – or even asked him to take me to visit you, but instead I just rushed out without thinking.  That’s not your fault.”  He squeezed my hand.  “Actually, you protected me.  If you stayed with me, you could prevent anything like that from happening again – make sure I’m never captured by humans again, I mean.  And even when you were badly injured, you protected your school nurse, too.  He probably would have died – he doesn’t have demon healing powers – so, you know, as far as I see it, people are actually safer with you around.”

I stared at him, then let out a surprised laugh.  “You have a weird way of thinking sometimes.”

He smiled at me serenely.  “I’m going to win you over to my way of thinking, you don’t have a choice.  I still want to make out with you but I’ve got to convince you to stop running away first, so I at least have until you’re healed to come up with ways to change your mind.”

I rolled my eyes, smiling a little, but found myself suddenly a little shy.  “I mean, you can.  If you want.”

It took him a moment to figure out what I was giving him permission for.
Damion’s eyes went round.  “Really?  No, wait – don’t answer that, I don’t want you to take it back!”  Without waiting any longer, he bounced onto the bed and leaned in to kiss me.

I decided that kissing an angel was just about as fucking perfect as I imagined it would be.  Maybe more so.

Damion giggled lightly when he raised his head, his eyes searching my face while he bit his lip.  “More?”

I raised my hand to his neck, pulling him back in to allow himself as much of me as he wanted.

He probably would have kept kissing me for hours – we both were discovering this was our new favorite pastime, apparently – when my phone rang.

I growled at it and reached over, only to pause when I saw who it was from.

Damion leaned over me a bit.  “Jasper?  Isn’t that your cousin?  Are you going to answer this time?”

I hesitated, then looked up at him.  “Will you stay with me?”

He lit up and grabbed my hand.  “Of course, of course!”  I’ll be right here.”

I took a deep breath and accepted the call.

“JUDAH!”  Jasper’s voice practically yelled in my ear.  “Is that really you?  Are you okay?  Where are you?  What the hell happened?”

I felt unbidden tears fill my eyes and had to take a moment before I could answer.

Dr. Adair had been right.  About a lot of things.  And so had Damion.

Maybe I wasn’t so alone after all.