A/N: Okay, first, to those who don't know, I like Zelos very much. I also adore his siblings like relationship with Colette. I actually wanted to write something more cheerful but this is what came up. I didn't write fan fictions for quite a while and I think my style changed...tell me what you think. Oh yeah, think Colette in this story like when she lost her voice and confronted by Lloyd.
It was one of the laundry shifts with Colette, sometime after his betrayal when he had enough guts to ask, "Have you ever regretted to be born a Chosen? That you were weighted with a task you wouldn't be able to escape?" He was, actually, wanted to ask the very question since the beginning. He had taken quite an interest to the girl, the only person that shared the same cursed blood as him. Colette's hands immediately stopped at the tip of his words, letting the cloth she was washing on hanging awkwardly above the water. Her face grew darker.
"I, "she began, and Zelos recognized her rarely seen serious face replaced her cheery one, meaning that she took the question to heart," I don't want to be a hypocrite," she shook her head rather grimly, "to say that I could give my life to the world generously, to let them use it for greater good. I have to tell you that in fact, I happened to suffer in several breakdowns, reflecting on my life and my purpose to be a sacrifice. It's not so encouraging when you know that people will be tenfold happier when you're gone, meaning that they'll be saved. Sometime I ask to myself whether it's worth or not to live for another day. I'm destined to die from the very beginning, didn't I? I learnt my duty too well that sometime I wish I could be someone out there, whoever that wasn't a Chosen. Like you've already known, no one of us asked to be chosen at all."
She stopped, picking another pack of clothes as she put aside the finished one. It was rather an action of redirecting her focus than the urge to finish her task. Studying her, he choked at the realization that she had also a set of mask on her own, though apparently she used it less than he did. She was a Chosen of a declining world, and Zelos achingly wrote the mental note, that he was not the only one to suffer."Then, how did you cope with everything?"
She lit up a bit, closing her eyes as if she could speak better that way, relaxing her body to more comfortable position."I don't know the exact. What I know is that I have people I'd like to protect, people I'd be ready to die for. People that keep me struggle to live another die, people that assure me that it's worth to see another sunshine before I died. Thinking that I am able to keep them alive support me, though I was so desperate, feeling guilty that I placed them over the world. But after all, that was able to solidify my resolution. The list was getting longer over time. My grandmother, my father, and then Lloyd came..." She smiled, and his face was more Colette than her expression the whole time she told him her story. She had friends. That was why she could be this strong. Zelos underlined the sentence, retracing his memories to find just a few entry matched his query."Not long after that were Professor Raine and Genis...I am an egoist. Should they never exist in the same world as me perhaps I would've run away."
A gentle wind blew her hair, and for a moment Zelos was sent into reminisce where he would sat together with his only friend(whose expression resembled Colette's now) that told him she wouldn't run away anymore. As he was drown in reverie Colette finished her pack of clothes and now in the process of counting the quantity, assuring herself that she didn't lost any on the way. When she faced him again, he was glad to see she was quite herself again. Colette was the sun of the group. Grief didn't work well with her, and he couldn't stand being the one who caused it. By the time he spent with the group he had began to see her as a sort of sister, and cherished the bond he couldn't ever have with Seles.
"Zelos?" She asked, carefully not to bother whatever he was doing. "Yes?"
"I think... I don't regret being a Chosen and all, ever since I know my existence could save everyone around me. And now, I don't even have to die. I couldn't wish for anything more." Her last words stung him in a way he never really comprehend. She was on suffering side, and yet she still could speak as such. He silently cried, cursing and loathing himself for ever wanted to sacrifice her for his own life, and his mind voicing agreement to Sheena's obvious anger towards his decision. How could such ruthless thing ever cross his mind? He was too corrupted to think clearly by his own. The difference between them was she possessed strength he lacked, to work on everything she believed to the very end, with everything she had. Bracing reality though it was far cruel than she deserved.
He wondered that if he still had her by the time of his dilemma, would he do the same? Perhaps...But there was none, there was none that he had to reconsider his choice, to purse his thoughts...none. You're the one pushed them away, hissed his mind. The virtual tug o' war continued in his mind for a while, bringing onto surface the guilt and feelings he had done so much to bury.
"Zelos? Are you okay?" She tilted her head, slightly concerned to the older boy.
"I'm okay, "he choked."I just glad that... you made it safely. That you didn't die..."
Because she was worth the title Savior ten times than he did.