Razer and Aya have had me in a tizzy these past 2 weeks so I decided to do something with all that nervous energy and emotion. Hence this.
Standard Disclaimer: This story is mine. Razer and Aya are not. Unfortunately. They would look cute on my shelf.
I should have kissed her. I shouldn't have let Jordan interrupt us. I should have kissed her when I had the chance. It could have been so perfect. But I knew the reason why I stopped before I kissed her wasn't because Jordan had called. It was because there was still an ounce of doubt in my heart, still a part of me that didn't want to fully give in to how I felt about Aya. There was a little part of me was still very conscious that she was a machine and I was an organic, sentient being, unlike her. Unlike her. But she was so like an organic, sentient being, more so than some living beings I knew, take for example those blasted Guardians. But that one part of me was so unwilling to forget that. That is why I didn't kiss her. That is why.
But I should have kissed her. I was so close. The problem wasn't her. It was me. She hadn't asked what I was doing, hadn't asked me to step away from her. She was far too eager to let me get so close to her, eager to come to me when I was alone, when I had left Jordan and Kilowog on the ship. She wasn't the one fighting this. That was me. And I knew in my heart that my problem wasn't just that I couldn't let myself forget that she was a machine and I was not.
I should have kissed her. That would have been a most wonderful memory for her to have. That flower that had been there, the only flower on the plant that I had given to her, I knew that I was supposed to give it to her. That was why it was there, when I decided to visit my former home. It's why she appeared while everyone else remained on the ship. We were given that opportunity, I could have kissed her and given her a perfect memory. But I hadn't. And now I got to regret it as I replayed in my mind the sight of Aya melded with the body of the Anti-Monitor, black taking the place of where she was green, emotions completely deactivated, and living now only to lead the Manhunters, her brethren, the "mere children" as she called them. But she, too, was like a child. She was so young and there was so much of the world that she had yet to learn of, so much information she had yet to assimilate. In my heart, I knew she deserved the position of a queen for who she was, how valiant, yet it hurt me to see her a queen this way.
It hurt me to see her without her emotions. No, she didn't seem as if she had no emotions. Even if she said she deactivated them all, it still felt as if there was resentment in her heart. It was evident in the way she accused us of not caring, of wanting only to command her kind to do as we pleased and the way she exclaimed that she rejected us all. It was evident in how she claimed how we were only capable of hurting others.
I deserved to be hurt. Because I hurt her. Because this, all this, was my fault. But it hurt me more that she was hurting so much. I was trying to protect myself from more hurt, from the difficulties of loving someone who was so…different from me and yet hurting her was not what I had intended. I had underestimated how much of a real person she had become. Just as the memories of seeing her leave us played over and over in my head, tormenting me, the memories of my rejection had tormented her. And they had driven her to this. It was my fault. Me. Mine. I had done this. In trying to protect myself, I had hurt her so much.
When she had come back to the ship in parts other than her own, it only emphasised the difference between us. She had avoided tragedy in a way that would be impossible for me. If I had to isolate the moment it occurred to me that I should retreat into my shell, to protect myself from any further difficulties and pains, when the confusion in my brain made me stop for a moment and slow down from where I had been barrelling down before, it had been that moment. I had never been so relieved to see her and so aware of her artificiality. It scared me a little. It scared me that I had thought that I loved her. Her. A machine.
I wasn't sure if I didn't actually love her. I was not certain that the words I had hid behind, that I did not love her but I loved the woman she resembled, the woman I had already lost, my Ilana, were the absolute truth. What I was absolutely sure of was that it had certainly scared me more to think that she had cut herself off from us and left us for good. When I had watched her die the first time, it had made me feel exactly like what I had said to Jordan, that death would be welcomed that day, but I felt that more now than I had before. Because it was worse than having lost her to death. I lost her because I hurt her and she chose to never see us again. She chose those murderous machines, those "mere children" being ordered around. She chose to be their Queen and never be our Aya again. When next we met her, we could be enemies. We could have to fight her. She would try to kill us. We might have to kill her. Just the thought slashed at my very heart.
Perhaps if I had kissed her, it would have become clear in my mind how I felt. I cared about her immensely. This was absolutely obvious. Out of everyone on our crew, it was her that I was most concerned about. But how did I feel about her really? Did I love her? Was I chasing Ilana's shadow? Was I in denial? Was I lying to myself? Was I overthinking this and hurting myself though this is what I was intending to avoid? Would I be able to find the answers without her?
I should have kissed her. I had wanted to kiss her. There were no objections in my mind then. And that thought still remained. I should have kissed her and were I to get that that chance right now, I would take it. I would seal upon her lips the most sincere, most tender kiss that I could and seal it into her memory banks.