Hello fellow Time-Travelers and MML Fans! Sorry I haven't posted in so long, but I'm actually sick in bed posting this right now, so you can probably imagine besides 10th Grade what I've been up to. (Ahem, SICK) I hope I don't need to remind anyone that though this doc is about my two favourite MML characters, Cavendish and Dakota are not and should not be a pairing.

In the mean time, enjoy this fic, but I warn you now that it is quite heart-wrenching. Prepare yourselves (mentally) now.

Enjoy.

A Sacrifice to Save You

A MML Fanfiction featuring Vinnie Dakota and Balthazar Cavendish

ASDM

"Dakota," Cavendish started darkly as soon as they sat down on the couch in their pathetically small apartment. He couldn't believe Vinnie had gone back in time to save him from dying! How many times had he done this? Didn't he know how many time-traveling rules he was breaking!? If he did know about the rules- he should know about them, he is an agent -he was going to be in so much trouble. He could even go to prison!

But Cavendish didn't have a confession, and until it was solid fact he couldn't continue meddling with all the claims against his partner in his head. He can't not talk to him and pretend that everything was fine when it wasn't. That wouldn't be fair to himself or his partner. Now, however, seemed the most perfect opportunity to finally get some answers. Cavendish cut straight to the chase.

"Have you been preventing me from dying by going back in time to save me? And tell me the truth." That last statement wasn't necessary for Cav to say because Dakota didn't lie. He might be secretive, but of all the years Vinnie was his partner he had never spoken anything but the truth and even admitted when he was wrong (which was quite often).

That was frustrating for Cavendish because he didn't really know what to make of him. Now, though, he would put these problems to bed, and shortly afterwards, they would go to bed themselves.

Vinnie had just sat down in the matching loveseat only a moment ago, trying to relax his body a little after another exhausting day. His shoulders were tense, but his form almost seemed to melt into the seat as the familiar scent of pistachios, sweat and cologne, mixed with the vintage smell of antique couch. Making sure his best friend didn't die was absolutely the most exhausting thing Vinnie ever did in a day's work, but the sudden question made him jump in his seat.

Best friend? When had they been best friends? Cavendish likely didn't even consider them friends in the slightest, much less best friends. But of course, Balthazar was all Vinnie had, and if anything permanently tragic happened to him he wouldn't be able to live with himself.

Cavendish didn't make it easy, though. The thought about being his best friend was a little far-fetched in the time-traveling veteran's opinion. Why would Dakota ever want to be best friends with him?

He watched as the color drained instantly from Dakota's face all but his cheeks, which became red in his shock. "Wh-Who told yo-" He stammered.

Cavendish's eyes widened in the affirmation of what he was asking. Dakota didn't even need to say anything else- his fearful reaction had also been completely revealing. Balthazar's blood boiled at the thought of Dakota breaking so many Time-Travel rules. How they hadn't been found out and fired yet was anyone's guess.

"Vincent Dakota! Why would you do that?! Don't you know the rules against doing such a thing!" Oh, Vinnie knew it was serious when Cav spoke his full name.

"I do but I-" Cav's partner tried to explain.

"You'd better have a good explanation for this," he steamed at his partner. Maybe he wasn't as careless as the had originally thought, but that didn't clear him for breaking Time-Travel codes, nor was he very careful about concealing his secret. Cavendish was about to continue chastising his partner until something made him stop.

"I'm not sorry." He said blatantly, looking Cavendish straight into the eyes, a determined expression etched into his features. His eyebrows were furrowed so straight he looked like a drawing. His voice sounded so tired just by the words alone but his face was carved in stone. Balthazar watched as his eyes began to water, the tears coming too soon. He had attempted at hiding his pain, Cav could see it now, but he'd failed.

Dakota looked so ready to let go of all the tension and stress that Cavendish now recognized to be hidden within him, and yet all this time he had no idea Dakota was ever stressed about anything. He certainly didn't act like it, so when Balthazar saw it in the way his partner's shoulders drooped and his head hung, he felt a hole in his stomach grow.

Balthazar chastised himself, screaming inwardly that he should have been paying more attention to his partner. Now that he'd thought about it, he'd always had an unusual feeling about Dakota's quick reflexes whenever they went on missions, especially that time where he almost fell into lava, or maybe when Dakota caught him by his collar when he just about got run over in the street, or skied off a cliff -Yeah, he could go on. It just seemed too surreal for his usually laid back partner to have such quick reflexes at the most convenient times when Cavendish was about to meet fate.

Sure, there were the occasional few moments where Dakota had proved his intelligence and usefulness on the force, but overall he was very.. what was the word?.. oh, unpredictable, instantaneous. This wasn't like him at all.

His next reaction was unnerving.

Vinnie's voice had become so small as it wavered until Cavendish could see large tears begin to roll down his partner's eyes.

"I-I..need you." He couldn't say anything else as he covered his mouth with one hand to muffle the sounds of hiccups. Large, hot tears poured from the Agent's eyes, which were stinging. Cavendish instantly regretted scolding his friend, thought he couldn't exactly understand why his partner would need him so fiercely in the way he expressed it. They barely got along with each other half the time and failed all their missions!

He looked so.. broken, though. Torn, conflicted and in despair.

Cav felt like there was more to it than that-No, he knew it was more. It was like Cavendish's outburst about the time-traveling rules had been the last pebble to bust open the floodgates. The time-traveling junkie began to see that Dakota likely needed him as an emotional balance more than he ever let on.

He hid it really well, Cav started noticing.

He and Dakota were very different, Balthazar knew. Even their needs were different; Cavendish needed actions, Dakota needed words. Cavendish was strictly professional and put 110% into his work, but Dakota was laid-back and knew how to handle different situations with much more efficient reactions.

"D-Dakota, please don't-" Balthazar couldn't finish his sentence as he was tranced by his grieving partner. His shoulders racked up and down as he sobbed. "Please stop crying, I'm sorry-"

Something inside Cavendish clicked. Dakota, he realized, had likely watched him die countless times. Balthazar's heart lurched.

"I'd lost you s-so many times, Cav. And I would break all the r-rules and go back in time to save you, and it went on like that forever.." he stated after calming down to speak clearly enough for Balthazar to understand him. Dakota's eyes never left the view of the carpet floor below him, his eyes puffy and red under his glasses and his body hunched over on the sofa. "And you would never know. But I k-kept doing it."

"But why!? Why do you keep saving me? It's not like I mean anything to you, and on the streets I'm just another face in the crowd!"

It's not like I mean anything to you, Cavendish had said thoughtlessly.

The words were poison on his partner's tongue and deleterious to his ears. A treacherous feeling stabbed Vinnie in the heart and a frisson of ice rolled down his back as those words left his partner's lips. Suddenly Dakota's expression twisted from sadness to disbelief.

"How could you say that?!" He exasperated, new tears trickling down his face. He grabbed Cavendish's jacket and tugged him closer in his upset state. After everything Dakota had been through, all the tragedies he'd suffered, all the emotions he swept under the rug to save himself from a nervous breakdown (and Cavendish from knowing the truth).. Cavendish really wasn't getting it. The truth was far too obvious now that Dakota shouted it. "YOU'RE MY BEST FRIEND!" Dakota collapsed to the ground, his knees hitting the carpet floor harshly, even with the protection of his sweatpants (similar to Mulan in Mulan II when she mourned Shane on the cliffside, grieving with the leverage of the sword). Vinnie's pain was so great he could barely lift his head. His display of agony was unrelenting now.

Cavendish was quick to hold his partner in the first hug they had ever shared. He'd had no idea, but the confession was all he needed to know. He knew that if Dakota had left him dead all those times ago then he would've been alone. Of course he thought this through in his head, attempting to convince himself: Surely Dakota had relatives to take comfort in if he decided to quit the force- that is, if he had let Cavendish stay dead.

"I-I've seen you f-fall, steam-rolled, ripped apart, s-shot, stabbed, crushed, d-defenestrated, suffocated, blown up, f-frozen, mut-t-il-lated.." Dakota was now staring into space for a moment, his eyes locking with Cav's, stressed to their cores with red and puffy orbits holding his tears, and they were wide open like he had just been traumatized.

Oh, wait, he had been traumatized. And Cavendish hadn't even known- There was no word, gesture or joke about anyone dying, ever, and now he knew why.

Dakota's hair was disheveled and some parts were in clumps from where he had been gripping his head as if his life depended on it. Beads of sweat rolled down his face like condensation off a cup of water and his 1970's jumpsuit needed to be washed now. In all, Cavendish's partner was a mess, although with everything he just said moments ago that would be an understatement. Balthazar had had absolutely no clue the amount of mental & emotional torture he had unintentionally put Dakota through, but now that it was clearly evident on his face Cavendish wished anything to make the madness stop.

He subconsciously wondered if this was ruining his partner psychologically. Would Dakota ever get over this? What if he was never the same? What if he was already past the point of recovery? Was Cavendish too late? Did Dakota need to see a doctor -or, or -live in an asylum?! What had he done to his poor partner?

"D-Dakota?" Bal uttered weakly. He really didn't know what to do. He was an expert in time-travel (He has been doing it for 20+ cycles!), not a phycologist! At any rate, how was he supposed to console Vinnie in a situation like this?

"Dakota, please don't- I'm sorry - I had no idea - I'm sorry I yelled at you, Dakota," He said regrettingly as his partner failed miserably to dry his tears, "But I need to know how long you've been doing this. Do you think we could talk more about it with something to drink?"

The sudden mentioning of something to put down his stomach made Dakota's head lift to meet Cavendish's gaze. He smiled sadly before getting up slowly and heading with Cavendish to the kitchen- Bal knew his partner wouldn't turn down food. Besides, Cavendish was craving some peppermint tea himself and could really use some extra energy if he was going to talk about all of this with Dakota.

It was a rarity when serious and personal conversations happened between the partners, but when they could be procrastinated no further both agents took to the kitchen to drown their memories and mistakes in food.

"So," Dakota started awkwardly after a first sip of his coffee, the heat of the cup calming him a little to talk. "What do you wanna know?" Balthazar set his drink down.

"How long has this all been going on?"

"Ever since I can remember being partnered with you.." Dakota leaned back in his chair as he sorted through the memories. "I think you died on our third mission.."

"Wait, you mean the mission with the pistachio seeds on the docks?!" Cavendish exclaimed. How was that even possible? But he knew Dakota wasn't lying.

"You slipped and fell off the docks into the water, and.." Dakota became troubled, reliving the pain of each death, starting with this one. "And I couldn't save you in time. You drowned. I didn't know what to do with myself, Cav, I was so freaked out that I couldn't think of any other solution."

This story didn't make sense. Cavendish knew he could definitely swim (it had been a huge part of their testing; every Agent had to know how to swim and even fight underwater), so how did he drown? And on their third mission?! They barely knew each other on their third mission; Why would Dakota go back in time to save a practical stranger?

"Why would you do that? You didn't even know me at the time! And how did I drown, I can swim!?"

"I can't t-tell you how.. I just can't." Vinnie put a hand over his mouth.

Cavendish didn't know what to expect at this point. It could've been anything that had killed him. But he would find out.

"Vinnie, please, we need to talk about this!"

Dakota sighed, his hands now rubbing his shoulders. Balthazar didn't know this either, but Dakota was starting to feel tremors throughout his body whenever Cavendish dies or he remembered something uncomfortable (that being on a scale from the basic draft in the room to watching his best friend go west.)

"You..you were impaled with a harpoon and pulled off the docks.." Dakota was shivering violently now which was instantly noticeable by Cav. "I-I don't know why I went back in time! I was just s-so..! I.."

V-Dakota. ex has officially stopped working.

Why did he go back in time to save Cav? He was thinking this over and momentarily forgot how cold he had been feeling. He really couldn't say why, he didn't actually know what had possessed him to break the rules so thoughtlessly and quickly like that for a total stranger. There was something about Cavendish that obviously must have been worth saving, Dakota knew, but he couldn't tell what.

"I don't know." He said breathlessly, now spent from the overwhelming retelling of the tragedy that had taken place a few years ago. He held his empty mug close since it was still warm on the outside. "It just felt so right. Ever since we met I felt something was different about you, but I've never really thought of what it could be until now.." Cavendish remained quiet as he listened intently to his partner. He knew this was more than hard for him to explain. "It was a sacrifice on my part… to save you."

Dakota's shoulders slumped for the second time that evening, this time being completely spent of his emotions. He was so, so tired. Cavendish knew it by the sound of silence. Getting up to take their cups to the kitchen sink he asked Dakota if he wanted to get some sleep. Smiling weakly he obliged. Cav was washing the cups when his partner snaked his arms around his waist and squeezed him into a hug.

Dakota was blushing furiously, not that Cavendish could see it. Balth had never let him do this before, but now seemed like a good time as any to steal one. He'd probably never do it again.

Cav didn't really care for physical contact between him and others unless it was a handshake, but the warmth radiating from Vinnie's body was comfortable and relaxing, in it's depressing kind of way. Eventually though they separated before they made their ways to their respective sleeping places. Balthazar usually slept in the bedroom but regretted not switching places with Vinnie, after all they had discussed tonight. Vinnie assured him he was alright, so he took his word for it.

Yes, Vincent Dakota was very strange indeed, especially in the way he dealt with his emotions. But that was what Cavendish had come to appreciate about his partner. He was calmer when Vinnie's soothing slang ripped through the air, or when his childish excitement shined on the streets. There were so many little things that made Vinnie -well- Vinnie, and Cav wouldn't have it any other way. Of course, he would just have to wait and see if Vinnie would stay that way. After everything that had happened tonight, Cavendish felt like he hadn't really been all that much of a comfort to his partner.

Comfort that Vinnie so desperately needed. Balth was a little embarrassed but mostly angry with himself that he hadn't recognized Dakota's odd behavior before all of this- things could have been so different -but it's not like he could change the past like this! There was too much history between them to change the events that had happened now. He knew neither of them would be the same if he did, and he wouldn't do something so drastic; It was against time-traveling rules to meddle with your own timeline other than the occasional SYS's ('seeing yourself' s).

That being said, Balthazar would change everything to make sure Dakota was himself again, even if that meant at his own cost. He would even alter time. Not that he would tell Vinnie this- that kid didn't need any more stress.

There is only so much one can handle in an evening. Cavendish just hoped he would sleep at all.

CRAP. They had to work tomorrow. This was going to be long day for the both of them.

(Okay, maybe not so much for Dakota- he was asleep as soon as he hit the couch.)

I hope you all enjoyed the read, I tried my best to make it as satisfying and as long as I could possibly think to make it.

Keep the cycle going: You read, you comment, I write, I post, etc..

Until next time,

Salutations and Fairfarren, Readers.

ASDM