Not a grave, no, but a burial all the same. A return to the soil, rich with minerals, to be reborn, to have the broken pieces shorn up and tied tight once more. She did not know whether it would make her whole again entirely, but surely a patchwork stasis was better than this slow, poisoned decay. Again and again, she must tell herself no regrets, and most of the time that was true. She could not regret what she'd done, what had to be done. All action came at a price, and she was paying. This debt was hard to bear, harder than most, and often when she looked into the beautiful mad face of her dutiful caretaker, a kind of soft reproach would surface with the words she was simply not cruel enough to say. You should have let me fall, she would remonstrate silently. It would be over now. But he was weak. He could be forgiven. She had not considered that in trading away herself, she had given up something that no longer wholly belonged just to her.
It was a pretty idea, going back to earth. But, try as she may, she could never quite make herself believe in it. The others clung to the notion, like children, but its comfort to her was a little transparent. She was confronted with the reality of the exchange with an intimacy no other could share. She was forced to stand helplessly by while her very body turned and attacked, became her enemy, poisoning from the inside out. No regrets. The trade was fair. That did nothing to allay the fear, however. But fear she could live—and die—with. She'd had done with anger. It was a fair trade, the anger for this fear. As she prayed, as had not been possible for so agonizingly long, even the fear began to ebb, along with her life. As a last mercy, she began to find a sort of peace. As long as she kept up the hood, kept away from mirrors. No regrets.
Perhaps the fear was a little unfounded, an unreasonable shying from a half-forgotten nightmare. She had spent cycles in chains, metal-mineral chains; was she ungrateful to repine the exchange of one kind of chains for another? To be brought to ground, planted fast in the mineral soil, to sleep in the sun was not the same kind of hardship, surely. She had become too used to walking freely.
All actions came at a price, and the trade was fair. A life for a life; it was no more than had been offered up to her before. If one of them had been willing to give that for her, how could she fall short of matching that sacrifice? It was the gentleness in her better nature, that forbade her from allowing hurt to continue if she could stop it, could take it into herself. He had begged her for death, but that was not something she could give. He had given her sanity back when she thought it was lost for good, raped and stolen and perverted. How could she do less for him? He would not live with himself, with the knowing, with the guilt...not without Aeryn. She should not have been taken to begin with; at least she could give back what should never have been lost. No regrets.
But then there was the matter of the hurt in Stark's face, the child-like confusion that demanded, How could you be so cruel? She could only trust in the strength he did not feel within himself. Stark would survive, could always survive; John would not. That was so simple, that logicality that sounded so grand and high-minded in her head. Her reasons were faultless, single-edged circles of clean justice. But she had never aspired to martyrdom. The barb of cruelty was hard to acknowledge, the unspoken accusations that danced between them as he hovered, constantly hovered, constantly trying in vain to make it up to her. It was a weakness she was not cruel enough to point out. No, it was not easy to let go of something beautiful—something he had never owned, something she had despaired of ever holding again. The bitterness of watching it fade in one's hand, found too late, was incredibly hard to swallow, and harder to stomach. She knew he blamed himself.
As often as she repeated the litany to herself, as if repetition could make it true, no regrets, she could only attempt to reconcile herself to the hard things that could not be helped. Of course she did not want to leave them, this hash of miscreants who'd become the family she'd never had. She flattered herself that perhaps she left them stronger for her presence. It was a petty comfort, but it brought solace all the same, and so she took it deep within her breast and nurtured it. The thought made it possible to face each painful day of waiting with something like serenity, allowed an equanimity that laid blame carefully aside. Even now, she must stand fast and offer the amelioration they seemed to find in her shade. They all needed it so badly. And, strangely, as she gave that comfort, she found it also. They were trying so hard. She could only hope that this effort of goodness would be enough, that the small stones of light would somehow balance out the wrongs and the dark.
The broken promises, the ends left untied, rankled at her. No regrets. It could not be helped. Sorry, Moya. It would not even be the first sacred trust she'd abandoned. Pressing her face to the warm, living metal, she could only pray that Moya would forgive her, in time. It was then that her insistence that she had no regrets fell most hollow. She could not pretend, not for Moya. What was a promise that could be so easily severed? What good was a protection that could so easily be ripped aside? What good was a power that so abruptly could be snatched out of her hands? The helplessness hurt as much as the budding, the bile. For Moya, she could not pretend at peace; she could only offer the most sincere palliation, for it was bare to the [soul].