The Sky White Life.
"We talked about everything except the space between us."
The world Kayne woke up to was white.
The sky was white.
The ground was white.
The beard of the man who stood above her, it's bouncing form that once resembled clouds in her hazy vision, was white.
But the eyes that looked into hers, those were blue.
"Kayne?" The headmaster's voice sounded concerned, his voiced echoing in her ears.
She groaned a painful sound from a self that shouldn't feel, but felt itself ripping apart from the inside out.
"Is this real?" She asked with eyes full of tears as the sky eyed man frowned sadly at her writhing form.
"Nor the earth, nor a ground is what you lay upon now." The headmaster's voice was soft as his hand gently touched her damp forehead.
"Why do I hurt?" She cried, tears falling from her cheeks with every agonizing movement her screaming body twitched uncontrollably.
"It's because you are not dead, but are in the afterlife still."
"It hurts." She cried, rolling onto a bending spine.
"You have done so well. You have succeeded, my child and I am here, and I will wait and protect your future. Go back now. Go back.
Go back…...
...
Her body lays upon the whitest of sheets.
Her head rests upon the whitest of pillows.
The floor is a clean white tile. The walls are wood but painted white.
The complexion of the worried father matches that of the moon light glow of his child's deathly face as his figure sits next to his unconscious daughter in a deep brown leather chair.
He loves her now. He loved her then. And as his only child lays on the brink of death, he can't help but regret the past.
He is sorry. But she can not hear his apologies.
He is paining. But she can not feel his sorrows.
He pats the loyal hound which sleeps at his side, and apologizes to the animal as well.
She is gone to the world, a world made of two sides, both of which reside silently in the room with him.
Minerva is there. Standing in the corner despite her age, she is watching quietly, waiting to be of any emotional assistance in this time of pain. The story that was given was hazy, but the girl was found by Severus and delivered to Minerva, who brought her here, to St. Mongos where her father was contacted and arrived soon after.
But that was over a week ago. And not an eye had opened from the young women yet.
There was something wrong that no one knew. Something that Severus didn't say. Information lacking that created tension with the medical staff, but still there was nothing that anyone could do as nothing could be pulled from the most absent Professor.
They feared him now. They all did. Him and his gaining plans to be headmaster, but that night as the world slept and her room sat empty, the window of her hospital cell creaked open and a black force phased to her side.
The skin of his hands was almost glowing against the night lit room and as Severus pulled his hood down in respects, he approached her unconscious form and fell to his knees, dropping his elbows on her bedside.
"I did this." His admit quietly in their shared confession after some time of silence.
"Again, you are here because of me." His broken soul whispers to the dark.
"But, I can save you this time."
He pulls from his robes a filled needle, and clears his voice as he chokes back the raising adrenaline.
If anyone saw him now. In such a moment of stalling before a release of an innocent. A moment of weakness in front of death... He shakes away his traumas, and his hand rubs the top of her hand as the needle sits in his other, uncapped and his thumb ready.
"I can end it all." His voice whispers as he rubs her forearm and pulls up on her sleeve, ignoring the worried cry of the dog.
"I can, because I love you."
The rooms falls to the haunting silence that comes with death. Not a bird nor tree, nor single sound could be heard or dared to move in the moment of evil as Severus, eyes narrowing, drops the point to her skin.
"Severus."
As if the devil himself came forth in a blast of fire instead of a quiet voice from the stillest of corners, Severus jumped to his feet and spun around to face the blackness, the needle flying behind his back.
Minerva, in all her age and moonlit wisdom, pulled from the shadowed corner and approached the man who stumbled back, his hip hitting against the side table carelessly.
"I thought you would come here." She breathed, unsure of the man who she now stood before.
"I needed to see her."
"To kill her!" Minerva uncharacteristically raised her voice, her anger becoming apparent towards the traitor and murderer.
He didn't say anything. He couldn't say anything. Nothing to anyone, not even her.
"Severus." Minerva's own voice broke as a tear came from her eye as the events of the last week overwhelmed her.
"Minerva. You don't understand." he tried, unable to pull anything up in any other way than a simple, monotone sigh.
"Than help me to understand!"
"I…." His face collapsed in lost thought, his empty hand raising to the side weakly, "I can't."
"You were my friend, Severus." Minerva voice came only as a whisper, as her eyes dropped onto the young woman in the bed.
"I still am."
"Did you kill, Albus?"
"Yes." There was no hold back to the answer. No lie, no thought of deceit. His admittance was with strong eye contact and and a stronger voice. He would break open his chest that night in that hospital room in a way Minerva hadn't seen before.
He was trapped.
Silenced.
Controlled.
He came to take the life of Kayne, but then again he almost didn't. He wanted to say something, she could tell, but instead he just stood silently, his eyes walling away from their situation. She saw the break his face when she saw him alone in something above her own knowledge. She saw how much pain was about to go into his next death.
He wasn't acting to kill her…. she realized.
To him, he was trying to rescue her.
"What's happening, Severus?" Minerva's voice whispered as she looked at the arm held behind his back.
He stalled a moment before raising his free arm, open to her in a way she had been only granted a few times before, and with a defeated sigh, under his form she slid, the side of her head finding comfort against his chest.
Eventually his arm would fall and rest upon her shoulders, his voice sighing, "I've lost all control, I admit, but all I know is that I have to do this."
"You had to kill, Albus?"
"And now I have to kill, her." The honesty in his words came from the breast of a broken sinner.
There was nothing left of the man now, it was heard within his voice and seen upon his features. Severus stood all but physically dead and Minerva felt within her, there was a mutually known timer that ticked away the man's mortality.
She backed away from him and his sins. Here, he didn't seem a murderer to her anymore and the feeling shook her. There seemed to be some light, some reason behind his darkness, but she was confused. She was hurt. And all she wanted was it all to wait, and to have the answers that would not be given.
Eventually. Eventually she would know everything, and she needed to remember that.
He didn't want this. She needed to remember that as well. Which meant he was doing this for someone else. Something else.
"Minerva. I need you to trust me."
"I can't."
He faulted before bringing his voice up again, the needle holding strong behind his back, "Why would I do this, otherwise?
She stared at him. He meant talking to her now. He meant the fact that if he were such a creature to kill why wasn't she dead? Either of them. Why would it hurt him so to do away with the young girl that he claimed to distaste so much, if he couldn't feel anything at all.
"I…. I want to trust you though." Minerva nodded, believing in more than the words that slipped over his lips as a reforming, strict professors tone slid over her eyes and expression. Her back straightened chin raised.
"Then -"
A fit of coughing from the bed broke the concentration of the two who turned around quickly to see Kayne turn off the side of the bed and vomit black bile onto the floor.
Gasping for air through her compulsive vomiting, Minerva stepped back and watched Severus slowly approach, his eyes watching Kayne for any sign of recolonization. He looked troubled. Very upset. To him he missed his opportunity. To him, he had just failed her all over again.
"Severus!" Kayne choked between tearful breaths, "I did it, Severus."
'I did it, Severus." Another racking breath as her vomited subsided and she fell back on her back.. "Fuck! Why does it still hurt so much!"
She cried out into the room and to the man who wasn't familiar with comfort, while Minerva continued to stand where she was, staring at his free hand that lowered to her shoulder.
"You secured, Albus?" He asked again for more than himself.
"Yes.. I did it.. I…I..."
"Sh." And she would hush. "You did good." his voice would remain calm. "Rest."
As if on command, her eyes rolled back and her body dropped limp against the pillows as her pain pulled her away from them. Slowly, when he knew she was gone, Severus would lower the needle from behind his back and hang his arm limply at his side. The point gleamed in the light as he turned to Minerva slowly, his eyes eyes flashing to her. His inner self raising again.
"So there is a plan.." Her voice was soft as a breeze and barely heard in the otherwise silent room.
"I can't talk about it." his voice growled.
"But there is one..?"
"...Yes."
It was a heavy moment of silence and cast away eyes when the sound of Minerva's clothing ruffled as her weight shifted.
"If I leave, will you kill her?" The question was of honesty and was true, but still she looked him over and watched him carefully.
"Wouldn't you?" his voice came as whisper and Minerva would let her head fall downwards, her eyes cast sadly onto the floor while she thought.
"Perhaps. I understand what compels you to believe you're saving her."
"Than why is this not right to you?"
"Because, she didn't do all this to die. This wasn't a way out for her. She did all of this because she wanted to make you happy, Severus." The rooms air suddenly thickened for Severus as Minerva spoke, "After all, what she just went through, is going through, what she will continue to go through, is all for you. The least, the very lease you could do is be the one she wakes up to."
Minerva would leave then. She would turn her back and disappear through the hospital rooms door, closing Severus away within it's darkness. Minerva would leave the pair there for Severus to do what he thought was best, to drop the hand he held so stiff behind his back to his side, eyes glancing at the needle that shined in the casting moonlight.
Once outside, Minerva would not leave them, for once the door clasp shut she turned fluidly around and landed her back against the cold stone at the doors side, her mind in racing thought.
That night, she would slip into her tabby cat form and quietly plant herself at the front of the pristine, white door. Loyally guarding all of the contents within and she tried not to think of the rest of the world.
