A Knight to Kill Me

By Secondhand Soul

"Mother Nature"

Anna looked at him from across the fire as he wordlessly peeled potatoes, Noishe curled about him like a great security blanket while Anna had nothing and no one to comfort her but the traveling cloak wrapped around her shoulders. Small comfort when she could have the strong arms of the very same man peeling those potatoes wrapped around her.

Wrapping her arms more tightly about herself, she turned her face away, tears stinging her eyes as she stared into the fire.

Damnit, Irving! Why do you have to be so stubborn?

Why couldn't she just admit she was wrong? She anguished, ignoring the feeling of his gentle eyes upon her. She didn't want him to feel bad, to hate himself for this, even though she knew by the way that he gave into her stubborn desire not to speak to him … That was exactly what he was doing. But he was Kratos, and really what had she expected?

Wasn't this supposed to make her feel better? Being mad at him?

It didn't.

A month without speaking with him and it wasn't worth it, she was finding. It was just has hard to watch him suffer as it was to be mad at him, and the more she thought about it, the more she realized she was mad at the situation. Really, how could he have possibly known any more than she had? That it was even possible, considering that he wasn't organic and she was …

Her.

She had to let this go.

She had to or they were both going to go insane.

"Kratos …" she began, hearing the potato peeler hit the ground and saw him freeze, staring at her in shock; Anna didn't miss the gratitude that flickered across his face. "Can I … come over there? I'm … I'm cold."

Wordlessly, Kratos moved over, allowing Anna to cautiously creep up and sit beside him, leaning into his side, automatically leaning into the warmth of his embrace. And it was an embrace, too, because just like that, it was like she'd never left his arms, like they'd never stopped sharing a bed. Just like that, he'd forgiven her, but if Anna knew Kratos like she thought she did, he'd probably thought there was nothing to forgive in the first place.

"I missed you," he rumbled, nuzzling her softly and kissing her forehead with gentle lips as he pulled her closer.

His perfect, deep, voice lulled her into a state of peace and made her feel like they could almost go back to the way things were before. Of course, she knew it never could back to how it had been because … Because it would never be just the two of them ever again. They were expecting, which …

It was what all this was about, wasn't it?

"Kratos, I'm … I'm sorry," she pulled away and looked up into his eyes. "I'm really sorry. Things are hard enough already and I just went and made things worse. I'm sorry for making you feel alone, I'm –!"

A rough finger was placed to her lips only to be replaced by his mouth a moment later. Hesitantly, he pulled away and then kissed her chastely again, cupping her face in his hand and touching their foreheads together. "Anna, it is alright. I am not mad, nor have I ever been."

"Well maybe you should be," her eyes filled with tears and she tried to look away, but found his other hand rise to cup her other cheek and hold her face in place. "I did a terrible thing, Kratos. I shut you out because I was – am – scared. And I just … I didn't know what to do, and I panicked, and I got mad, and –"

"Anna," he said her name again, always gently, brushing her hair from her face and the tears from her cheeks. "Beloved." There was another long, loving, kiss to punctuate the word and give it its full meaning. "Anyone would be scared. And it was … This hardly could have happened without me."

"Well it couldn't have happened without me, either," she grumbled, blinking her eyes to fight back more tears. "So just don't blame yourself only, okay? I don't."

She saw him inhale and he released her face, taking her into his arms and pulling her into his chest so that she sat on his lap, her head against his shoulder. "Can this be anyone's fault?" he wondered out loud. "Should this feel like punishment?"

Anna started.

He was right. It did feel like punishment – Punishment for the fact that they had tried to be happy on their own terms when so much else was wrong about the world. And it would be punishment, too, for the child inside of her, because they were hardly equipped to be parents.

"I don't think it should," she finally responded, suppressing her shudders. "I think people are supposed to be happy to … To get pregnant."

His fingers wound themselves through her hair and he began to pet her gently. "I can think of plenty of situations in which a child would not be a blessing to its parents." Kratos told her softly. "That being said … It is not the child's fault. I do not want to lose sight of that."

She looked up into his face, finding him staring stubbornly into their campfire, the flames reflecting in the depths of his dark eyes, his brow knit more tightly over his eyes than it usually was. Anna knew that he was thinking about his past when he did that, about the things he'd never told her and maybe she would never completely know. Looking away and placing her head against his chest again, she realized just how much about him she really didn't know.

She wondered if she would ever know everything.

"I'm just scared," she said. "I'm just really scared, Kratos. Scared that the Desians will catch us. Scared that Cruxis will catch us. Scared that the baby will make me sicker. Scared that we'll die."

"I will protect you from Cruxis and the Desians," Kratos told her, though his tone made it apparent that there were some things she couldn't protect her from – And that included himself.

"I know you will, Kratos." Anna muttered. "I trust you."

She felt his eyes on her again but he didn't say anything – Maybe because he didn't have anything comforting to say to her. Because he probably felt she couldn't trust him after this had happened, and that he'd gotten this bad, this mopey, this introspective, was her fault because she'd left him alone with his emotions to stew for a month.

"It really isn't your fault."

"I made a mistake, Anna. This is a mistake and I cannot take any of it back and I am sorry," he finally said, his voice resigned, pained. "I have put you in danger."

She could feel it coming from him, the deep seated regret that she was all too familiar with. The kind of regret that she knew could make your throat feel like it had a lump in it. "Kratos, I wanted it. I love you, and I wanted you, and you didn't do it alone. It's not like you … You forced yourself on me, so you really don't have to feel so guilty because I did it, too."

"But I do. I told myself I would never, ever, tell you how I felt because people I care for have a way of ending up damaged or dead," Kratos' grip on her tightened, and she sensed that he was using her to ground himself to reality against a wave of crushing emotion. "But I broke my promise. I told you when you confessed to me because I was caught off guard and because …"

He didn't need to finish that sentence for Anna to know what he was going to say. He'd said it to her enough times for her to finish it for him.

"Because you never thought anyone could love you because you think you're a monster."

"I wanted to feel human, whole, just once. I wanted to do something normal and mundane as being in a relationship with a beautiful woman who loved me," Kratos' hold did not loosen. "But I should have known better, Anna. I shouldn't have been so careless as to think that this … This sort of thing was impossible just because of an Exsphere."

"Kratos –"

But he cut her off.

"It is selfish, but I am so angry and I do not want the child. I do not want it to have to grow up with a father like me. I corrupt perfectly normal people who were just fine before they met me. I do not want to know what kind of … Messed up thing a child that I raised would grow into."

Anna reared back and slapped him.

It silenced him, leaving him staring at her, though not in shock. He looked guilty, abashed, as if he knew he'd done something horribly wrong. "Don't say things like that. First of all, it's insulting to the … The baby," she said. "And second of all, it's insulting to yourself."

He simply continued to stare at her, so she continued to speak.

"You're not a monster, Kratos. Mithos and Yuan are just as liable for their actions as you are for yours. Your biggest crime is that you have such a big heart you don't know what to do with it," gently, she soothed her hand over where she had slapped him only a moment earlier. "And I wanted you. I was pretty sure this was a risk, but I wanted you anyway, because I love you and you make me feel alive. And no matter how scared you are, I know that you're not an Angel of Death, you're a knight and a good man, and you'll be a wonderful father."

"I just do not want to hurt either of you," he muttered. "Because I, too, am afraid. Afraid because you are the first person in many thousands of years who has ever bothered to look at me and not see the angel. I just do not want to lose you and I do not want this child's life to be forfeit because of me." He paused. "It deserves a chance independent of its father."

"Well maybe its father deserves the chance to love it and prove himself worthy," she told him, looking deep into his eyes. "And maybe it needs the chance to have a father who loves it instead of having a father who gives it away in fear."

There was another silence, this one more awkward, but it allowed her to lean back against his chest again, for his fingers to work their way through her hair again.

"Do you want this baby, Anna?" he finally asked her.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I don't know, Kratos, but all I know is that when I close my eyes I can't see anybody raising our baby but us."

He was quiet again for a long time.

"It is going to be fine," he said a moment later, and even though he didn't believe himself, she believed him enough for both of them.