Disclaimer: Saint Seiya is the property of Masami Kurumada, Toei Productions (anime) and Shueisha.

Found And Lost

"I'm not entirely sure," she finally muttered in response, eyes shifting nervously. Seiya was staring at her, incredulous. She turned to follow Ikki, but hesitated under Seiya's gaze, unsure about what he had heard or noticed. Before she could make up her mind, he spoke.

"Did Ikki just say he had a wife?" His voice sounded exactly like the look on his eyes.

She hadn't realized that she had been holding her breath, until it came out in a heavy sigh. "I believe he did."

Another thing Saori hadn't realized was that if she was going to marry Ikki, she was going to have to tell Seiya. This was obvious in retrospect, but the thought still crashed against her temple like a fist, and she wanted to be sick again. Her head turned towards the door with an urgency that was almost longing, and from deep beneath her understanding bloomed an embarrassment that made her face burn. She wanted to run. "I should probably go talk to him."

"Or you can just let his wife talk him down, since she's so much better than you!" Seiya laughed, like someone had just said something funny. All she could muster was to bite down another sigh. "But seriously, from what I saw in the garden before, you might want to give them a little…" He paused meaningfully. "Privacy."

Saori's heart dropped to her feet like an anchor. One more thing she hadn't realized. "You saw them?"

"Only from a distance. I saw him go by with a woman in his arms."

In that same place where her heart used to be, she fought to keep the bile down. "I saw her too. She's very pretty."

"I couldn't see her face with Ikki all over her," he laughed again. "I think it's the first time I've ever seen him show affection."

Her face burned again at the mention of Ikki showing affection, and at the rate her heart was pumping blood, it was no wonder. She thought of what she had seen earlier, the blonde head against Ikki's chest, arms around his neck, and the jealousy that ballooned inside her chest seemed to leave no room for air. Then with a flicker like an old tv's, blonde hair changed to lilac and she saw her own head against him, her own arms around him, and the warmth of his touch rose in her body as if more than a memory. Another flicker and it was the blue hair and blue eyes that turned to brown, and the eye of her mind showed her Seiya this time, and herself enveloped by him. If she was going to marry Ikki, she was going to have to tell Seiya.

Saori braced herself on the window sill and reached for words that could chase away her thoughts.

"You didn't know he was married, did you?"

Seiya shook his head slowly. "I can't even see how it could be true, but then again, with Ikki, anything is possible. Shun never said anything. That'd be the only way I could have known."

Shun. The name itself almost knocked her out, but if she was going to feel everything, she might as well feel that, too. What would Shun have said of her predicament? Over the years she had known him, his calm resignation towards Ikki's fierce but impractical love had struck her first as the mark of a liar, then an idiot, then a saint. She might finally have been on to something. Shun had told her the biblical story of the prodigal son — a story, in his telling, of love that inhabits what is, love that does not keep score. The focus of the story, he had explained, was not the titular son but rather his older brother, whose actions betrayed an arrogant view of his father's love as a reward to be earned with his righteousness. That view was mistaken: the father's love — and all love, Shun maintained, human or divine — was in fact a grace that could only be freely offered, a gift bestowed in spite, and not because, of its recipient. Shun's love for Ikki had indeed been free: he had expected nothing and rejoiced in everything, celebrating Ikki's arrivals without reservation and grieving his departures without resentment. It was no wonder Hades had chosen him.

But to her, the story had a tinge of darkness. She had wondered then, and still wondered now, if it was also a cautionary tale about that father. She could understand that the older son may not have been more deserving of his father's love than his brother, but didn't the father's actions imply that he was… less? Shun had had no other brother, no one who had stayed and waited and done everything right. Had he had one, would he have allowed himself to favor Ikki so exuberantly?

"Shun would have known… Shun was the only one who could get to him."

"You could get to him too," Seiya replied, almost in a whisper.

She looked out the window and was startled to see Ikki, climbing on the back of his own motorcycle while the blonde woman took the driver's seat. The engine noise floated up in the air when they drove off, Ikki's arms wrapped around her.

"I'm not so sure about that," she whispered back. "Sometimes I think he hated me."

"Well… maybe at one point."

She wondered whether, if the prodigal son had then left again, the father would have caught himself off-balance and turned to his firstborn, appalled to have been so unappreciative. Why was it always the storm of abandonment that made the waters of love overflow? Why did they rush so carelessly past those who stayed close to the source, swelling and flooding only far down the valley, where the sinner's trek led?

We are all in that valley of sin, Shun would have said.

"Can I ask you something, Seiya?"

He said nothing.

"Did you ever hate me?"

There was absolutely no good reason for her to be asking this question, and more than a few bad ones. She knew that perfectly well, even as she spoke the words. Seiya seemed to know it, too; he gave her a strange look that she took as reproachful. She thought — almost hoped — he would deflect, but he answered.

"That's kind of a funny question. Because you were always three people to me." His eyes and his hand traced the back of the chair nearest to him. "Ms. Kido, then Athena, then Saori. I did hate Ms. Kido. You know I did. We all did. And I still think she made mistakes. But I came to respect her. Even understand her. I learned to separate her from her grandfather. Athena is the easy one. Nobody could hate Athena, it would be like hating the moon. And Saori, I have never hated." He was looking at her now. "Not for a second."

"Do you think of me as Saori?"

Hesitation. "I try not to. You know that."

She did. She had kissed him in that small apartment, but he had kissed her first, at the top of a staircase in her Greek estate. Again the sensations rose in her, the Seiya in her memories coming into focus as the one in this room drifted to the background. She remembered it clearly, melting into him. "If you had a choice," Seiya had begun to ask her that night. If she had a choice. She hadn't answered, hadn't even let him ask. There was no choice. And when she forgot that one day and knocked on his door, he reminded her of it.

"What happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"What happened between you and Ikki?"

If she was going to marry Ikki, she was going to have to tell Seiya. She could tell him now. She could look him in the eye and explain everything. She could tell him that Zeus had first come to her just days after that night in his apartment. She could tell him what she had learned a year later about Metis and the strange logic of myth. She could tell him about that second dream of Mount Olympus, and the choice she had been given there. She could tell him that she had already known about this when she asked him once if he would wait for her. She could tell him how torn she had been, how many times she had played out his words of rejection in her head, learning over time to make strength of his resolve. She could tell him that she had pushed her feelings aside as they fought war after war, and that when peace came she had been pushing them aside for so long that she almost couldn't find them anymore. She could tell him that she had spent that past year getting ready to explain to him that there was a choice at last. And she could finally answer his question, after all these years.

But all she did was look away.

"I'm not entirely sure."

[Insert joke here about Phoenix rising from the ashes, etc. etc..]

If I was going to apologize proportionally to the amount of time this fic was in hiatus, it would take another whole chapter. :) So I'll just say I'm thrilled to be writing again. If you started reading this almost 15 years ago and you're back now to check out what's going on, thank you *so much*! That means a lot. :)

I never stopped thinking about this story, but for many reasons, it was really hard for me to get it right. It didn't make it easier that I decided not to post again until I had a full draft, after learning a valuable lesson about writing myself into corners with serial publication! But I started working on this again a couple of months ago, and now I do in fact have a full draft! I'm so excited to be writing again and to share this with you. :) The rest of the draft needs time to sit and "proof", but I plan to post a chapter every two weeks or so until the end. (There should be five more after this.)

Heartfelt thanks to all the readers who encouraged me through the years. :) I know this wasn't necessarily apparent (for, erm, about seven years), but those reviews were so encouraging!