Chapter 10: Damage

"How often already you've had to be told.
Keep cold, young orchard. Good-bye and keep cold.
Dread fifty above more than fifty below."
-Robert Frost, Good-bye and Keep Cold

The scene was quiet. Lyra feared Andromeda dead. They weren't supposed to kill her...

Sometimes, you show mercy. Beatrice's words echoed in her mind.

Then, Lupus gasped. "She's moving!"

Andromeda awoke quickly, not slowly. She pushed herself to her feet. She looked at them quietly.

"I'm so sorry."

Everyone was silent. Andromeda bowed her head. "I cannot express it...how sorry I am...so utterly sorry..."

An orange light gathered around Andromeda, and she seemed to fall into it.

The others gasped, because her uniform was changing, molding to be like theirs. And when the light was gone, she was clearly one of theirs, in orange and green. The only thing marking her different was the style of her brooch—bars crossed it, separated into the colors of the others—there was a purple bar, a blue one, a red one, and a green one.

Sailor Andromeda stared at them, despondent. "I'm healed. I understand now what happened...that Perseus had died. And that you had, too. And I'm so sorry." Her voice fell to a whisper. "So sorry." She looked up again, tears bright against the green of her eyes. "Can you forgive me? Can you accept me?"

Lyra stepped forward. "Of course we forgive you."

But Auriga cut in sharply. "No. We don't."

"How can we trust you?" Lupus asked, moving in front of Lyra, who stared in horror.

"Guys!"

Cygnus spoke up. "It's true, Lyra."

"How...how can you just..? We saved her. She's okay. She's one of us," Lyra pleaded, but the others were unconvinced, restraining her.

Andromeda, Beatrice, and Perseus were silent.

"We want nothing to do with you," Auriga said. "Stay away from us."

Andromeda was feeling an immense sorrow, but she could understand.

"So be it."

She inclined her head, and turned, leaving them behind.

As soon as her form had melted into the cover of the trees, Lyra turned on the others.

"How could you! You know she was safe. You know she was."

"Eumelia, stop it," Cygnus demanded. "It's too late now. And we did what we think is best. You'll see. It'll be alright." She de-transformed, and the others followed suit, Lyra the last, lingering slightly, staring at the spot she'd last seen Andromeda.

This isn't right. It can't be.

But it was time to pick up the damage.

A few leaves swirled forlornly across the street. The sky was overcast with rainclouds; a common sight during an Iowa autumn. A slight drizzly chill hung in the air.

Eumelia couldn't concentrate. She was fully aware of the fact that this was her last year of high school and that she needed to work hard, but how does one concentrate on the structure of a sentence in French when you've just helped repair ancient celestial history? With magic, at that.

But something else was bothering Eumelia, and it wasn't boredom at returning to a normal life. Something was wrong.

Eumelia clenched her fists as she remembered the look on Andromeda's face. A devastated look, but one that understood, too. Understood why the others would keep Eumelia away, and stay away themselves.

Because Andromeda couldn't be trusted, even if she had been freed.

Even so, Eumelia had been expecting the princess to return to school. But she was not there, and still no on at North remembered the orange-haired girl.

She had been erased from their memories.

The park was empty, and so, too, was the library, when Eumelia convinced the others that they should look for Aegle. There was no one at the grocery store near Aella's home, and no one at the YMCA downtown.

The summer house at Theia's home, abandoned for a very long time, was empty as well. Except for a note.

Eumelia picked it up. She read it, and tears pricked at her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.

"She's gone."

Then, finally, she let the sob break.

"I wanted to save her."