A/N-Set after the Hades Saga. I haven't read Next Dimension so that's not really taken into account here.
Saori left the hospital room, her shoulders sagging with the weight of her worries. She didn't know if she'd ever felt so tired in her whole life as she had from the trials of the past week.
Their victory over Hades had almost come at too high a cost, and it still may. She wouldn't soon be able to forget the ashy grey sheen of Seiya's skin when he had leapt to her defence and Hades' sword pierced through his Cloth. She had feared they would lose him then and there, as his blood slowly seeped from the wound, but he'd hung on as they escaped Elysium. Thanks to the marvels of modern medicine, though he was still far from recovered, Seiya's condition had stabilized. However, he'd yet to open his eyes, and that worry still clung to Saori like a vice grip.
Even with the doctor's promises that his condition was stable once again, and their assurances that it would only be a matter of time before he opened his eyes, she'd visited every day, more than once usually. Not that she needed to worry for him having enough caretakers. Between his sister Seika, his master Marin, Miho and his fellow Bronze Saints, Seiya was not wont for company. Still, Hades had been her enemy, destined since the days of myth to fight her. It was because of her that Seiya had been injured. Sometimes, for a goddess whose role it was to protect the Earth and its people, Saori felt like she did little protecting compared to how much she required.
Passing by the patient's garden on her way to the exit, Saori spotted a shock of green hair among all the foliage. Shun was sitting on a bench surrounded by low bushes, his eyes downcast. Despite knowing Tatsumi would be outside, ready to drive her home, Saori changed her course and entered the gardens.
Shun hadn't noticed her yet. She knew because his face was lowered in a dark frown, so unlike the bright, cheery smiles that usually adorned the young man's face. It was an expression one would more so expect to find on his older brother, and one she'd been seeing too often on Shun's face when he didn't think others were looking. She had been too caught up in Seiya's precarious condition to address it until now. They all had been.
The frown on Shun's face was abruptly replaced by a bright, but strained smile. He'd seen her now, and of course being as selfless as he was, wouldn't let anyone else in on his pain. Too bad for him seeing to the well-being of her Saints was a priority of hers.
"Saori," Shun said, making to get up, but she waved him down, and sat beside him on the low wooden bench. It felt good to sit down, tired as she was. Shun was looking at her, his eyes still holding that false brightness. "How is Seiya doing?"
"More of the same. He still hasn't woken up but the doctor's seem confident that he will any day now," Saori replied. She gripped a fold of her dress a little tightly. He was recovering, but the doctor's assurances that his condition was getting better with each passing day was never enough to push the thought of Seiya's pale as death skin far from her mind. Saori shook her head and forced herself to release the fabric of her dress. She looked Shun straight in the eye and said, "But I'm not here to talk about Seiya. How are you doing Shun?"
The brightness on his face dimmed. "Oh, you know, I've been worried about Seiya, just like everyone else," he replied evenly. "I'll feel better once he wakes up." Shun turned his head, his gaze falling unfocused on a nearby bush which was covered in buds about to blossom into flowers.
"Shun," Saori put something harder into her voice, but he didn't turn back to look at her. "I'm asking about how you are."
His green eyes flicked back to her for the briefest of seconds. "I'm fine, really," his attempts to assure her were anything but convincing. Saori did not miss the way his left leg started to twitch nervously, or how his mouth dipped briefly into another frown before he was able to bring it back to a smile.
Saori sighed, and leaned back on the bench, looking out at the garden herself. It was a peaceful, well-kept place, with level ground and smooth paths to make traversing them easy. As soon as spring fully took hold it would be bright with flowers. It was the perfect place to spend time recovering.
She wasn't getting anywhere with Shun, not with the direction she'd been on, but luckily changing tactics was something that came easy to her. "It's terrifying, isn't it?" Shun didn't respond to her blunt question, but the curious sound he made in the back of his throat told her she had his attention, so she went on. "Everything feels normal, then all of the sudden you feel all of this immense power rushing through you, so much that you couldn't possibly hope to contain it, let alone actually control it. All that power, without even knowing where it's coming from."
She stopped then, letting Shun mellow over her words. She'd get him to talk about it. One way or another she would.
Silence stretched between them, broken only by the faint rustling of branches in the breeze. What seemed to be a long time passed before finally, very quietly, Shun spoke. "No, what's terrifying is knowing where all that power is coming from."
Saori turned from her survey of the garden to look at him again. He'd let his mask of cheerfulness drop completely. His eyes were dark, and his lips curved down in a frown that was either brooding or scared; Saori couldn't tell which. It seemed that all she had to do was open up the floodgates. Now where Shun once wouldn't speak at all, words started spilling from his lips.
"I could have killed you all, I could have killed everyone, destroyedeverything." Shun still spoke in that hoarse whisper, but his words came quickly, tumbling over each other in their haste to escape whatever dark place he'd locked them away in. "I couldn't- I couldn't stop him. I couldn't stop myself. I wasn't strong enough. If you hadn't have been there, everything would have been lost." He wiped hastily at his eyes, refusing to let the wetness that had just begun to glisten there track down his face.
Saori could hear the pain in his voice, the doubts and the self-loathing. "Look at me," she said softly once his words slowed. His gaze slid to the side so he was looking at her out of the corner of his eye. "Look at me, Shun," she said more forcefully, placing a hand on his shoulder and pushing him around until he was looking at her head on.
She eyed him levelly, refusing to let him break eye contact. "You wouldn't have killed anyone. You wouldn't have destroyed anything."
Shun moved to turn away from her, but Saori's hand held him firmly. He scowled at her when he realized she had no intentions of budging. "If you're going to say it was Hades, you're missing my point. This is why I didn't want to talk about it with anyone," he practically growled.
Saori wanted to scream in frustration. For all his sensitivities, Shun could be as much of a blockhead as any other man she knew. "You are the one missing the point here Shun," she said in a tone that refused any protest. "You wouldn't have done anything, because you wouldn't have let anyone get hurt. You never have."
"Saori, Hades had beaten me." The scowl on his face turned into a very sad, very defeated looking frown. "He had me, he had all of me. If you hadn't shown up, I don't know. I had already given up."
"Already given up? Are you just trying to feel bad for yourself now?" Saori shook her head, barely managing to keep her frustration out of her voice. She leaned forward slightly as she said intently, "Shun you were still fighting. If you hadn't been I never would have been able to expel Hades from your body. He would never have reached Elysium where I could fight him on a level playing field. If it weren't for you we would have lost everything."
Shun turned his head, breaking eye contact with her. "But if I had only stayed in control. If I could have convinced Ikki to kill me when he had the chance, Seiya wouldn't be in the hospital."
Saori's mouth fell in a flat line. There it was. The root of all of Shun's moping around this past week. Guilt did funny things to a person, she should know. Too many people had given up their lives for her sake, or taken blows that were meant for her. She'd be damned if she let Shun wallow in that same black emotion. "Maybe he wouldn't be, but Shun, you would be dead. Don't be so quick to devalue your life in favour of others."
"Says the woman who stabbed herself in order to take her own life recently," Shun said, though his voice sounded a little lighter than it had earlier.
The thin line of her mouth turned into a faint grimace. Maybe the kettle was calling the pot a little black. "That was different. I knew what I was getting into, and I knew I could get out of it. With your help of course," Saori replied. "What you're talking about would never have ended well for you."
Shun shook his head, then turned back to look at her. The hints of the first true smile she'd seen on his face were peeking out from the corner of his mouth. "Besides, you're our goddess and we have to listen to you, right?"
Saori let her hand drop from his shoulder, and smiled back at him. "Well, there's that too." Saori stood up then, straightening out the folds of her dress. "I should get going before Tatsumi comes up wondering where I am. Are you coming back to the mansion for dinner, or would you prefer to enjoy another meal of hospital food?"
The look of disgust on Shun's face said it all. He nodded and stood up. "I've had enough of cardboard meals for a lifetime."
"And enough of moping around I hope," Saori said delicately. She eyed him for his reaction but the small smile that had come onto his face did not falter.
"Thanks to you, Saori."