RUPTURED

By: azure7539

Pairing: William/Rita, William/OC

Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Family

Rating:M

Summary: Life didn't exactly turn out the way he had expected it to.

Warning: This is an AU and a SLASH as well, which contains an intimate relationship between men(mostly)... you'll see why this warning is here later on. So beware, people, those who aren't comfortable with this should leave before you read something you dislike/hate. And this will get DARK because, apparently, I cannot write anything else other than that.

You have been warned!

Disclaimer: I have not and will never own any of the characters in here. They are all borrowed from the movie "Edge of Tomorrow".

This story is based on the theory of William Cage absorbing the Omega's blood during the final battle before resetting once more back to the helicopter.

Additional author's note: Because I have seen the movie once about a long month ago, some details are a little fuzzy, so the characters may be slightly OOC, and I apologize in advance for that. Message me if you find any obvious mistake regarding the movie verse, I'll do my best to fix it.

And I don't have a beta and am looking for one. If anyone is interested, please message me. I will highly appreciate it.

Now, enjoy!

1. Fresh beginning

Rita cautiously eyed the man that was walking back to the table with a tray in his hands. Major William Cage, he said. They met at the base before the launching of Operation Downfall while she was in the middle of her training. She could still clearly recall the wide goofy grin he wore when she stood up to greet him properly, as if he was very glad and relieved to have finally met her.

The reaction puzzled her a lot, considering she had never before seen his face in her life. Or maybe she had... eons ago while the war was still raging all over Europe. She could barely remember the faces of people that weren't her teammates, let alone an officer. Of course, she could always ride the excitement off to finally seeing the one they called 'The Angel of Verdun'... but then again, in the military, there was a reason why they prefered to use 'Full Metal Bitch' with her. And words had always traveled faster than anything else, that much was for certain, they all knew how 'stuck up' and 'unnecassarily serious' she could be. Therefore, this explanation didn't seem likely, and she crossed it off without a second thought.

Unsurprisingly, she saw him again the following day on the beach. He had informed her that they would soon meet once more since he would be joining in on the battle as well. Well, not that there was much of a battle left when their troups were met with such little resistence in comparison to the enemy's previous agression. However, he did surprisingly show quite an impressive range of skills while moving fluidly in the suit as though he had been in it for countless of times before.

Which didn't make sense at all. With his set of skills, they should have been in combat with each other, or, to the very least, she would have heard of him. Yet... here he was, a complete stranger to her as he maneuvered swiftly throught the terrain, shooting down all countered hostiles, and still managing to steal a look or two at her from time to time. Those weren't the kind of looks that were meant to merely be check-ups on one's teammates, not at all. They had seemed geniunely worried and had turned somewhat frightened whenever she wasn't in his direct line of sight. It was like he was anticipating that she would... drop dead at any given second.

And everything just felt so strange and waving too much over to the edge of an unfamiliar territory for her to specifically decipher what his ulterior motive was.

"Here you go," he said, setting down a cup of coffee before her along with three packs of sugar. Rita found her eyebrows furrowing again as her eyes darted from the cup to the man and back.

"Do you always get three sugar for everybody?" she asked, neglecting to thank him because the curiosity and slight suspicion in her was simply amplifying too quickly for common sense to be of much use.

Major Cage just smiled his stupid smile and shrugged, sipping his own brew leisurely and avoiding the question altogether. Gods, she hated ambiguous jerks, officer or not.

Setting her jaws, she had had enough of this, Rita thought to herself and was about to get up and walk away when she looked up and caught the anguish gleam his eyes before he averted them away hastily.

And something inside her just clicked.

"The surge of energy that was detected in Paris... the Omega was there, wasn't it?" she lowered her voice just enough for the question to remain just between the two of them.

The Major appeared startled for a brief moment but settling back to that irritating calm that she now knew was nothing but a mask, just something for him to hide behind. The conflict in his eyes was relatively apparent as she could literally see him contemplating the answer, throwing it around in his head and wondering whether he should even be telling her this or not.

Finally, with a sharp intake of breath, he whispered: "Yes," and those blue eyes flickering with a palpable turmoil of emotions. "We destroyed it. It's all over now."

A long, shuddered sigh of relief escaped her nostrils as she sat back in her chair for a bit. Thank the Gods, that meant no one had to die unnecessarily anymore.

But then...

Her eyes snapped open.

That means-

He was avoiding her gaze.

Rita felt her mouth go dry as she stared long and hard at the man sitting across from her, and suddenly, everything became perfectly normal again to her. She understood it now. "We? That includes you and I?" though the only answer she received as a quick nod, it was the only confirmation she required.

They were silent for a long moment, both lost in thoughts as the soldiers filtered in and out of the canteen, chatting and joking the whole way merrily about the victory they had had that morning.

It took her a while, but in the end, she took in a lungful of air and managed to force the question out of her throat. "How many times?" she just needed to know.

He stiffened visibly then swallowed the rest of his coffee without looking up then set the cup down once more, eyes staring off into the empty space just tipping off somewhere to her right. Those lips twitched, opening and closing without successfully uttering a single sound before a tongue swept out and licked them wet.

"Does it really matter?" he eventually said after a long time, somewhat breathless, looking up long enough for her to pick up on the tantalizing grief that was beginning to seep into his features. "I've long since lost count," and there was that certain note of resignation ringing in those words that made her want to shiver.

Anguish and despair so tangible that they wrapped around him like a transparent sort of misty veil. The veil of someone who had been made to watch over and over and over again as the people around them fell down to the ground lifeless and unmoving- dead and bloody- and no matter what they do to change things, it still happened, one way or another.

Fight. Die. Reset. Fight. Die. Reset. Fight. Die. Reset.

That was it. There was nothing more to that haunting endless cycle. Not at all.

If anything, it was like having to loop back and forth to the probably worst day of your entire existence.

Truth be told, it wasn't a feeling that she wanted to experience ever again, not if she could avoid it. And Rita looked at him, really looked at him since the first moment they met (to the best of her knowledge, of course), and saw herself all those months ago after Verdun, back when the emotional wounds were still too fresh, too painful, too raw and overwhelming.

And Rita sighed one more time, opening each pack and pouring the sugar into her coffee then brought it up to take a small sip. It was just the right taste with the right amount of sugar.

"Consider yourself lucky then, Major Cage," she said, trying to be slightly softer toward him. "At least, this time can be counted as a definite end to them."

She laughed a little- the kind that just escaped your nostrils in soft puffs of air- and it was his turn to stare at her, seemingly caught up with a memory that obviously had something to do with one of the resets. But then, slowly, he closed his eyes and chuckled as well, the low sound rumbling through his ribcage and throat like gentle waves of the sea. It sounded sort of nice, she quietly admitted to herself and resumed drinking.

"Cage, or William is fine," he said. And well, at least she got to see his second real smile after that first one in the training area. That was a good start as any.

After five years of cleaning up after the war, five years of opening up and getting to know one another, five years of being friends-turned-lovers... he was then down on his knee in front of her, eyes wide and hopeful. He seemed calm to the naked eyes, but she could tell how nervous he was from the way his body posture stiffened, movements jerky and wavering.

"Rita Vrataski," the ring gleamed in its velvet box. Gold and well-polished, simple but elegantly crafted. "Would you consider marrying me?" he asked, voice low and soft, the one he always used whenever he wanted to reveal something important to her.

She could tell how important this was to him, she could tell how long it had taken him to finally get to this point. Months ago, almost a year already, she had first started to notice changes in his behavior. They were subtle, but noticeable to her like how the edges of his smiles softened, how his eyes became more gentle and touches became more tender around her. How his hands often lingered that bit longer than usual on her shoulder, and how much more efforts he threw into the short amount of time off they got to make it as normal and domestic as he could for the both of them.

They were out in the park where she had first taken him anywhere on their third three-day-off together after having quite a few drinks in the pub nearby. The air then had been just as cold and chilly as it was now as he remained there on the ground in position, the tip of his nose and ears red from being exposed to weather like this.

Friends-turned-lovers. Rita mused to herself as she looked at him, contemplating inwardly if she would have even used the word 'lovers' herself to describe the relationship they were in had she been asked at all. Yes, they were friends, they talked and shared experiences about many different things with each other, laughing and drinking and joking around with one another. Yes, they kissed and made out and had sex from time to time, it was great, it was wonderful.

But did she want to marry him?

Then she remembered her father and the sad glint in his eyes when he came to visit weeks ago and told her she should settle down after holding her calloused hands briefly. She knew he loved her as much as her late mother did, knew how much they both would love to see her finally having a family of her own. After all, Aaron- her younger brother- was already married with two little brats now, so it was natural for her father to be worried about this, even more so when mother was longer there to help him.

"William seems like a good man, Rita," he had said once after going out to have a drink and the shovel-talk with Will a long while ago. Aaron had nodded in agreement with quite a confident smile. People liked William, they really did. He was nice, funny, sometimes cowardly, but always tried to do his best for others- for her when she needed him to.

And now, as he knelt there with arms still out-stretched, holding up the small jewelry box in his hands, his smiled wavered, blue eyes growing sad and dimmed and egded with a sort of helplessness of a person realizing how slim their chances at something were.

She remembered all the time he had made her laugh, she remembered the calls her father made to check up on her, she remembered how William had always been there for her to lean on whenever she was too tired to move on just yet.

She swallowed and licked her lips. She knew what should be said. Her mind flashed back to Hendricks, all the time she had seen him die gruesome deaths meaninglessly, over and over and over and over. She pushed that away, she pushed that painful twinge in her heart as his gentle smile bloomed behind her eyelids away. No more.

She knew this was the pathway to happiness.

"Yes," Rita said, the word almost got choked in her throat on its way out.

His eyes widened, genuinely surprised for a moment there at what had came out of her lips. "Rita?" her name foolishly fell out from his mouth. And she laughed.

"Yes, Will, I'll marry you."

For a few seconds there, it didn't seem like the words got registered into his mind, but then he smile broke into a wide, joyous grin.

For a few seconds there, she thought his blue eyes had shifted to green and hair turned golden. He stood up, and for a moment there, she had imagined him taller. And as the ring slipped onto her ring finger, for a moment there, Rita had hoped she would see Hendricks grinning at her when she looked up.

But Will was there with his goofy grin. And she told Hendricks to bugger off.

All was well.

The ceremony was small with only a few guests and close relatives, mostly from Rita's side of the family. Will had all but lost touch with his distant family members, no one had bothered coming to pick him up from the orphanage- he told her once- so why should he invite them now to ruin their big day? He waved the whole thing off with a wink and a smile before turning away to grab some tea for them both. And sometimes, it was hard to make out what was real and what was not with him, sometimes she could be dead-on with her predictions, but other times, she failed miserably. Therefore, she had been unable to determine at the time whether that part really didn't concern him at all like he had said... Their discussion about the wedding arrangements had been resumed afterwards, and she had let it slide.

The Father was commencing the ceremony, Rita looked up at him from their joined hands as he stood there, looking quite handsome in that tux, happy eyes staring straight into her own. Behind him was her brother, filling in the blank, and no one else.

"Will you, William Cage, take this woman as your lawful wedded wife to have and to hold, for better or worse, till death do you part?" the question rang in her ears, and his smile widened.

"I do," he said, the grip on her fingers tightened.

"And will you, Rita Vrataski, take this man as your..."

Her eyes swept back to the row of guests in the front, immediately spotting her father smiling at her, very happy and contented. And the same went to her brother as well, winking at her from behind Will with his stupid grin.

This was it.

This was it.

"Yes, I do," the Father said something else, but she couldn't hear those words anymore.

The rest of the world blurred out of existence as everything else condensed into this one single moment in life as he leaned down to kiss her, their lips touching, dry but soft as she felt his firm hand around her waist, pulling her close. Distantly, she heard the loud sound of clapping and cheering, laughing and whistling as well drowning in the background, buzzing in her ears.

"I love you," he whispered tenderly, passion mingled in his eyes, when they broke apart.

"I love you, too."

To be continued...