HER SECRET

THE SKY HAD CLOUDED OVER; BLOCKING OUT THE WEAK SUNLIGHT THAT NORMALLY MADE THE MORNING CRISP AND CLEAR. It was almost as if the gods had used her feelings as the basis for the day's weather. Looking up at darkening clouds, Gaia was pretty certain they would start weeping as soon as Ed drove away.

The slam of the car door closing - Ed had taken one look outside and decided to stow his bag safely in the back of his car before doing anything else - brought Gaia's eyes crashing back down to earth. With an odd pang, she noticed that the car window looked like it had never been broken.

"They fixed the window well, didn't they?"

Ed glanced back at his car. "Yeah, they did. I must say I'm glad I didn't have to go to a garage to get it sorted or otherwise it would have cost a fortune! You wouldn't believe the rip off some places are."

Gaia nearly laughed. Despite the mind bending past couple of days, Ed still managed to focus on the normal and make the most insane of incidents seem mundane. Then again, Ed had always been the type of person who would process an event and be ready for next before she had even begun dealing. Gaia's smile grew at the thought: Ed, ever the trooper.

"You sure you don't want some rest before you go?" Gaia knew there was no point in asking this question as she had already asked it twice before that morning, but she wanted to keep the conversation going to that the end didn't come so quickly.

Just like before, Ed shook his head. "No. I think it would be better if I covered a fair amount of distance before the morning rush. I'll just stop at a motel when I get tired."

And then the end was there, the one she had been trying to force back, and it was time to say goodbye. She had already said it once years ago and it had broke her heart. Now, after the motional roller-coaster she had just been on, still was on, she was sure that one more soul spinning bend would break it again.

"Gaia, make me a promise."

Her heart froze. Those were not the words she had been expecting, but they still hit her hard. She wasn't a fan of promises - people always broke them - but if making one meant that Ed stood in front of her for a little longer then she would, because she was soon discovering she wasn't a fan of Ed leaving either.

"Yeah, okay. What is it?"

"Promise me you'll call more often than once every four years."

She couldn't stop the full-blown smile that beamed off her face. "Yeah, I can do that."

Ed smiled back at her, and the only thing she could think about was how happy he looked.

IT WAS AN ALMOST PERFECT MOMENT THAT HE DIDN'T WANT TO SPOIL. As it was they had barely ever had any kind of perfect moments or even particularly great moments. Gaia was smiling at him, really smiling at him, and looked like a goddess with her golden hair shining against the grey sky. It was a Kodak moment he wanted to remember forever. But Ed knew he had to say, ask, this one last thing, be damned the consequences even if that meant killing the smile on Gaia's face.

"Gaia, last night - actually the night before last night - you said that I'm your best friend," he said carefully. "Am I? Am I...Do you still think of me as your best friend?"

Gaia stared at him in silence. She seemed to be studying him, half-wondering if he had really just asked that, her smile slowly fading with each passing second. "Of course you are. Why else would I phone you after four years of nothing? Why else would you come visit me? That's only the sort of thing family and best friends do."

And it was true. Despite the four years apart, it felt like no time had passed at all. Yes, he was most definitely still her best friend.

IT WAS TIME. She had been avoiding this moment for far too long, when in reality she should never had tried to delay it, to stop it happening at all. Ed deserved so much better than that. He deserved the truth.

Gaia took a deep breath. She was going to tell him her secret.

"Ed, there's something I want to tell you."

Ed's smile wavered into worry. He stared at her in silence for a second, frown lines forming between his brows, then gestured for her to sit on the bonnet of his car.

Gaia shivered as the cold metal of the car leaked inside her jeans. As she wrapped her arms round herself, Ed settled down beside her. Gaia felt a rush of warmth as Ed pushed his thigh flush against hers. Suddenly she felt caught between the need to tighten her hold over her heart and the desire to reach out and hold Ed's hand.

"Okay. What do you want to tell me?"

Gaia turned to look at Ed and every one of the words she had planned to say froze in her throat. Memories of that day weeks, months, ago flashed through her mind. And suddenly instead of seeing Ed's eternally optimistic grin, she saw Will's confident smirk. A pang shot through her.

Telling him her secret had made them closer, so close that just thinking his name now was a slap to her heart. Telling him her secret had magically made the space that had been pushing them apart disappear. From then on he no longer had to waste his energy worry unnecessarily about her and she no longer had to waste her energy hiding the truth to him. It had balanced the bond between them, something she had never managed successfully with everyone else.

But in the end he had still wound up dead like the rest. Despite being fearless, she had failed to save him.

No, Gaia told herself, he didn't die because I'm fearless. He died because of my many other flaws.

Gaia swallowed round the lump in her throat.

"What I want to tell you, you'll either wonder why I didn't tell you earlier or you'll just think I'm crazy. Probably the later."

Ed looked confused, but nodded anyway. The one simple movement motivated Gaia into continuing - if he could trust her so unequivocally, then maybe he would believe what she had to say.

"I didn't tell you the real reason why Catherine tried to recruit me for her father's distructo team. The same reason why Skyler Rodke tried to become my friend. Actually it's the reason for most of the drama in my life," Gaia confessed. "It's because I can't feel fear. I'm genetically incapable of feeling fear. It's some sort of genetic defect I've had since I was born. Anyway, that's why. Everyone wants a piece of the fearless girl."

As soon as she stopped talking, Gaia had to fight down the urge to be sick. Pushing back a wave of nausea, Gaia turned to look at Ed again. And immediately had to force pass another wave of nausea.

His face was blank, completely devoid of emotion, as if her words had made him comatose. With a sickening sense of irony, Gaia thought that if she hadn't been fearless his reaction would've been making her shit scared.

WHY WAS SHE SAYING ALL THIS CRAP? Had she been so open and honest that she felt the need to tell a big old fat lie to rebalance her inner true-fake seesaw? Or was she just crazy, having finally lost it after all the madass stuff that had happened to her? Ed didn't know, and frankly he didn't care. It may have taken three years but it had seemed that they had finally cut through the crap that surrounded the waste that was their relationship. Only Gaia was now trying to heap a new load of trash between them and turn them into two people whom didn't know one real thing about the other.

"Fearless? You're joking right?" Ed felt a sharp stab at the sound of his own bitter anger. "Brave, yes. Fearless, -"

Gaia cut across him. "No, I'm not joking. And bravery has nothing to do with this. Bravery is overcoming your fear, not not feeling fear in the first place."

Ed felt his anger boil. He had heard some of the most fake things in his life - many of them coming out of his ex-girlfriend Heather's mouth - but this really topped them all. "But I've seen you scared! When you visited me at the hospital after Kai and I got attacked. You were scared."

For a split second Gaia looked sad, then her solid facade was back in place. "Yeah. I was."

Ed stalled for a beat, utterly confused. "So what the hell are you talking about?!"

"Genetic therapy," Gaia replied without even blinking. "I saw a chance to be normal and I took it." A wry smile appeared on her face. "Turned out though that I'm not meant to be normal. The therapy only lasted a few days, then I was back to being fearless me. Not that I care. After 17 years of never being scared I couldn't deal with being able to feel fear. The smallest thing would scare me. Embarrassing really."

Oh God.

His memories shifted. Ed had never understood her behaviour during those weeks between his attack and the prom. But here was an explanation, which as crazy as it was, fitted. He would have to have been blind not to notice that at the time her emotions had been all over the place...

It had been just before the attack; they had not talked in weeks when Gaia had suddenly sat down next to him on a bench in the park and asked if she could change one thing about herself, should she do it even if that change would be forever? Ed had replied that she should, but only if it would make her happy...

"How did you manage to get gene therapy?"

Gaia's eyes shot up and stared into his. He could see the uncertainty in them, but not one single hint that she was lying. "Through an associate of Rodke Pharmaceuticals."

It all fell sickeningly into place. During those weeks before prom, Gaia had been stumbling down a winding path that had taken her to Skyler Rodke. Ed knew that Gaia would have been the first to see through his lies and discover the dirty drugs his family was making - so the only reason why she would have failed to see the signs would have been if she had been too scared too. And the only reason why they would have wanted to make a fearless girl frightened was -

"They wanted you to perfect their Invince drug. To make people truly fearless."

Gaia nodded, her eyes wide. "You believe me?"

"Yes. I do," Ed said. Considering everything about Gaia was crazy, then her being fearless might as well be normal.

TBC

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well, I've done it again! As you will already know this was going to be the last chapter, but like with chapter 10 I couldn't fit in everything I wanted, so there is still one more chapter to come!