Disclaimer: I don't own anything!
Author's Note: Thought of this at work last night and I hurried to write it this morning. (I'm late to class as it is)
I hope that if alternate universes exist,
it will still be you
and me
in the end. I hope that
there will always be an us,
In every world,
in every story.
-Tina Tran (Let Us Always Find Each Other)
Sometimes, Anna dreams about if things were different.
She dreams about Kratos like he must have been once, with mischief in his grin and laughter on his lips, before his eyes got too old for his young face and sorrow tugged down the corners of his mouth. Sometimes, it's easier to imagine. Like when she can entice him into a playful mood, when she feels his chuckles rumble through her. When she manages to roll them over, and makes him gasp and arch beneath her, and she laughs at his expression.
She wonders if Kratos dreams about things like that.
He doesn't sleep as often or as deeply as she does, but Anna knows that when he does, there are nightmares. She's felt him, trembling against her and while he doesn't call out, his expressions aren't pleasant. Once—and only once—she wakes with bruises in the shape of his fingers. (The look on his face had been a terrible one when he'd seen the damage, guilt and darkness clawing at him and it wasn't until Anna wrapped her arms around him, kissing his collarbone because she refused to be afraid of this man that he could even touch her at all again)
She asks Yuan, once. About what Kratos had been like back then.
Yuan's eyes on her are thoughtful, calculating; Anna isn't bothered. That seems to be Yuan's default expression sometime. She expects him to ask why, but then, the answer is pretty obvious and Yuan isn't a man that likes to waste time.
"In some ways, he's not very different," Yuan tells her finally. His gaze has shifted, out onto the horizon now. "He was always quiet, not very good with people."
Anna snorts at that because Yuan's not wrong. Kratos is always polite, but the longer a conversation veers from the expected parameters, the more awkward he gets. He still gets that way with her sometimes and they're married, for all intents and purposes.
"But you could always count on him to have your back. I mean, I probably would have been kicked out of the military for all the things I pulled if it weren't for him covering for me."
One of Anna's eyebrows go up, even as she grins a little at him. "Quite the troublemaker, weren't you?"
"Troublemakers," Yuan corrects. "Plural. Half of them were Kratos' ideas. He's just always been better at not getting caught."
Anna makes an amused sound in her throat, not bothering to try and stifle it as she stirs her tea. She doesn't hide a lot of things, and Yuan thinks that that's a good thing. The world can use more of that.
(If there was one thing that Yuan knew, it was that Anna was the best thing that could have happened to Kratos. She made him better, made him want to be better)
Sometimes, Anna dreams of a life without Desians, or Cruxis.
She dreams of Luin, larger and grander, floating on the lake that shimmers in the sunlight. She dreams of summer festivals of which she has only very vague memories now, over a decade later, but she imagines candles set afloat and bobbing in the water, imagines dancing with whirling skirts and loud laughter. Imagines not having to be afraid of Desian raids, imagines having enough to eat at every meal, enough to share with neighbors and let the children sneak some away, as children are oft to do.
It's difficult to imagine where Kratos fits in that picture. Sometimes, he is just a man, watching the dancers go. Other times, he has his nose in a book. Sometimes, he's not there, but other men are. Sometimes, she dreams of a ring on her finger and another man's lips on hers. A few, rare, times, Kratos is standing with Yuan, who holds hands with faceless woman. Somehow, Anna instinctively knows her name and that she's beautiful. There's a boy-man, too, in those odd inbetween years, who has a wide, sunshine smile and there is no hint of madness in his laughter.
(That last part was impossible, Anna knew. If Martel had never died, none of this would have happened, but that sounded a lot like blame and you couldn't blame a dead person just for the inconvenience of having been murdered)
It's early in their relationship that Kratos asks her, "…Are you sure about this?"
It's a question that he will ask again, when she tells him of her pregnancy, again when Lloyd is born and another half dozen times in the soft hours after midnight. She knows what he thinks; he's explained it to her in halting, bitter words. He believes he's a monster, that she can do better than him, that he'll hurt her. (And maybe he was right. Maybe Anna did deserve someone better, but Kratos was the only one to save her and call her biased, but that didn't seem like something a monster would do. Kind of the opposite, really)
And every time, she tells him, "Yes, I am."
He can hear her heartbeat. He knows if she's lying.
She never is.
One of the first times after they escape the ranch when he kills the Desians that find them, as he looks up from the corpses—one or two of which are in front of her because all she has is a knife, but damn if she's not going to use it—and he looks almost afraid of her judgment. (Not that she could recognize the expression for what it was at the time. It would only be in her memories that Anna understood what happened that day)
She doesn't run from him, from the angel with a naked sword covered in blood. She doesn't back away from him or flinch when he takes a few steps toward her. She just asks, "Are you going to stand there staring all day or are we going to get out of here before their reinforcements arrive?"
(There would be more fights, more deaths. Later, when they grew comfortable with each other, Anna would tug him down so he was resting on the curve of her thighs, against her stomach and she would smooth away sweat-damp hair that still refused to be tamed. She kissed his forehead and his hair would tickle her and yeah, maybe in some cosmic equation, she did deserve better, but right now, this was all she wanted)
Sometimes, Anna dreams that she's back there. In the ranch.
She dreams of manacles around her wrists, of being chained like an animal. She dreams of hands on her, of bruises, and blood in her teeth and on her tongue. She dreams of being tied to a table. She dreams of needles and blades, dreams of being blinded by the overhead lamps. She dreams of terror, of being afraid of turning into one of those monsters. She dreams of being shoved in a windowless cell, so small that she can't stand. She dreams of hearing the others on the really bad nights. Of their cries, of the terrified faces of the children, yanked away from their parents, their neighbors, their cellmates, anyone who has been kind to them.
Those nights, she screams.
Kratos is always careful not to touch her on the bad nights. Even though she can't hurt him, not really. He calls her name, sometimes soft and gentle, other times firm and loud. Sometimes, if it's really bad, his voice goes sharp, like a drillmaster's.
She's usually disoriented when she wakes up and he always waits until she focuses on him to call her name again, always quiet, a question.
That's the moment when she knows it had been a dream, that she's safe.
Her body doesn't always get the message right away though. Sometimes, she will still be shaking. Carefully, telegraphing every movement, Kratos will reach out. She always takes the offer of comfort, of his arms wrapped around her, of his heartbeat under her ear, and the steady rise and fall of his breathing. (Angels didn't need to breathe, and there were a lot of times that Kratos didn't, but on nights like these, just for her, he breathed)
Sometimes, Anna falls back asleep in his arms. Not often though. Most times, after she's calmed down—though Kratos is careful to never be the first to move away—he talks to her. Nothing of terrible importance. Thoughts running through his mind and observations he'd made during the day. If it's a particularly clear night, he'll talk about the stars, the images he sees in them.
She'll turn around, on those nights, back pressed to his chest so she can see what he's seeing and he'll draw them out for her and tell her the stories, stories from his childhood, stories that don't exist anymore except in his memories.
He tells her about the great hero, Celtir, whose wife had been taken by Shadow, who was besotted with her, and, backed by Luna and Aska's power, he'd gone down into the depths of Shadow's realm to take her back.
He tells her about how great the love between Aska and Luna had been, but the old gods—so old that even Kratos doesn't remember them—had been threatened by their power, so they separated them into the sun and moon, never to touch, always circling. Origin, seeing their plight and sorrow, fought against the old gods and gave them power enough to have forms outside of the sun and moon and Aska is forever loyal to Luna, as she is to him, and they protect lovers on their travels.
Anna has always found Kratos' voice very soothing and she curls closer into him as he talks. These nights, she doesn't fall asleep so much as simply breathes in the open air and his presence and relaxes into it.
(He would tell those same stories to their son, propped up on his strong shoulders. He also told Lloyd the stories that Anna grew up hearing, about the Goddess Martel and the Hero, Mithos. He changed them, though. Hanged them so that the Goddess wasn't some distant, sleeping deity, but a warm, loving person and the Hero was playful and strong in turn. Anna wouldn't comment on those nights, but after they put Lloyd to bed, she'd kiss Kratos gently, rubbing her thumb along the strong line of his jaw. She knew that the stories were as close as he could get to the memories, sometimes, so she almost never asked about his Before. But sometimes, on those nights, he would tell her. And she would thank him quietly when he was done because she never expected to be allowed all of him)
Sometimes, Anna dreams about happy days.
Days when her family doesn't have to be looking over their shoulder. Days that she can imagine having a home—a proper one, near people—and watching Lloyd play with other children. She imagines having the luxury of waking up in a bed that's hers, not an inn's, and curling into the warm space that Kratos makes because he's always been an early riser. Which works fine because Lloyd is an energetic kid and there are mornings when Anna just can't keep up with him.
She dreams of watching Lloyd grow; her and Kratos would take bets on which girl—or boy—catches Lloyd's attention and which one will be his first kiss and she would tease him about the blush on his cheeks. (He would look like Kratos, then. Not that many people would have seen Kratos blush, but Anna had and she took delight in trying to make it happen more often)
Sometimes, she dreams of growing old. Of her hair going gray—there's no way she would get the dignified silver that she's sure Kratos would have—and of her hands going veiny. Sometimes, she dreams that Kratos grows older with her too, that he removes the Cruxis Crystal because things are safe. She dreams of the crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiles deepening, of the gentle lines creasing into his face. She dreams of him grumbling about being too old for this as Lloyd's children tug at his hands. She dreams of laughing at him and him getting revenge later, kissing her deep enough that she goes breathless and the kids cover their eyes. She would swat at him because she's not that young anymore, Kratos, my heart can't take that kind of action anymore and his eyes will crinkle with that smile of his.
Sometimes, she wakes up crying on those nights.
Lloyd is a curious kid, always wandering off because of something interesting that he spotted.
It would drive Anna mad, but Kratos has his incredible senses, so as long as Lloyd's within his radius, she knows he's safe.
She sees how Yuan looks at Lloyd, on the days when he visits and he thinks she's not looking. There's grief and longing there, but love also. Yuan would have made a good father, Anna thinks, and while she has never known Martel, she thinks that she would have been a good mother too. Or at least, she'd be better suited to motherhood than Anna is. (Sometimes, Anna wished she had known Martel. It would have been nice to have another woman's input on all this) She's seen the ring on Yuan's finger, knows the history behind it, and it hurts to think about him being so lonely for so long.
When she has those thoughts, her hand seeks out Kratos', gripping it tight, needing to feel him here. He tightens his grip briefly, just strong enough to hurt a little, to ground her—they've come a long way with his guilt and Anna assures him that she won't break and yeah, not all pain is bad—before he loosens.
They will never wear matching rings on their fingers. Anna will never wear a white dress and they won't marry in front of an altar or all their friends—which, let's be honest, is just Yuan—but Kratos wedded and bedded her long ago, even if there's never going to be an official piece of paper that says Anna Aurion on it.
(She would never take his name anyway. It didn't suit her, she told him once. Too dramatic. He rolled his eyes when she said that and said that there wasn't a term dramatic enough to describe her. He followed it with a kiss that she ended up laughing into, hard enough that she had to break away because, yeah, he was right)
Sometimes, Anna dreams that she dies.
She dreams that she dies like Martel had, a sword through her belly, Kratos and Yuan around her body. She dreams that the world shatters again, after that. (In the stories that Kratos told, a lot of great loves had been deemed too dangerous, had been broken apart. Like Celsius and Efreet, Luna and Aska. Anna believed that. Love was the most powerful thing in the world, powerful enough to break a world and powerful enough to remake it)
Sometimes, rare times, she dreams that she dies old, right beside Kratos, like the happy stories that she'd been told as a child. That would be nice, she thinks, but she knows, somehow, that it's not going to happen.
Anna dies bloody. She dies with the sight of Kratos' hollow, broken eyes, of his tears and her blood on his hands. She dies knowing that Noishe is going to keep Lloyd safe, like he always has.
She dies a monster, killed by an angel, just like the dramatic stories. But the stories would get it wrong. They would call the angel a hero from the beginning and he wasn't. He's broken, and angry, and scared, but he's kind too, and very brave, and can be so gentle and so powerful in turns. He's a storm like that.
Some people will call the angel a monster too, because of the things he's done. And the things he's done are monstrous. They're terrible. But he isn't. Those people will call her a victim, will call her story a tragedy. Anna doesn't think it is. She'd been happy, with her boys, and her dreams and the stars and she's done her fair share of terrible things too. She's killed, for her freedom, for her son. Does that make her a monster too?
In the end, they're both people. People with dreams that aren't going to come true now. But Anna hopes that Kratos' will, that he and Lloyd live happy. They deserve it, her boys with their star stories and sweet kisses.
(Anna Irving was buried on a green mountain, where the shade could reach her, but there were no branches directly above her. She could see the stars that way, watch them reel above her and she'd imagine her angel flying across those skies, imagine her son with wings of his own and it was a good dream)