A/N: Set at the end of episode 6, when Geralt argues with both Yennefer and Jaskier and they leave him after fighting the dragon. Those scenes always upset me, so I decided to write this to make it a little better.

Summary: After Geralt loses both Yennefer and Jaskier on that mountainside, Akela's there to assure him that he's not alone.

It was quiet.

Eerily quiet.

For the very top of a mountain, at least.

Even the wind seemed to have silenced its gaily howls, too scared to make a noise in case it made him snap.

Akela watched Yennefer disappear around the corner, looking after her with a longing in her eyes that wasn't at all for herself. She was willing her to turn and walk – run – back with all her heart. Wishing with every ounce of her being that she'd come and she'd take back all she'd just said, simply so the look on his face would cease to exist and her heart would stop shattering each time she looked at him.

A cold breeze blew past and she hugged her arms to herself, staring still at the empty spot Yennefer had vanished behind. She was frowning, lines spread across her forehead and mouth set in a thin line as she absently bit at it.

She turned, meeting Jaskier's eyes, and he jerked his head in the direction of her Witcher. Her eyes briefly flit across to him and she sighed. His back was to them both, but he was standing stone still, fists clenched by his side as he stared out across the vast expanse of the deserted valleys below.

"Phew! What a day!" Akela's head snapped back around again, and she gave Jaskier a look when he began to speak, fidgeting with his hands and walking slowly towards Geralt. He wasn't looking at her, but she wished he would, if only to see the expression on her face. Jaskier knew Geralt, but not as well as Akela, never as well as Akela, and she knew that a time like this was not the right moment to portray such Jaskier-ness. "I imagine you're probably-"

"Damn it, Jaskier!" And, there it was. The blow. The volcanic eruption. The long-awaited explosion.

Geralt whirled around, his amber eyes ablaze with an angry fire, and stormed towards Akela and Jaskier. He spat his next words like poison, all attention fixed on the latter as the poor bard stopped quickly, shutting his mouth and stepping back the slightest bit.

"Why is it whenever I find myself in a pile of shit these days, it's you shovelling it?" If he were an animal, he would likely be seething. Already his jaw was clenched and the vein in his head was throbbing with every pulse of his abnormally quickening heart.

Jaskier blinked. "Well, that's not fair," he started.

"The Child Surprise, the djinn," Geralt continued, anger seeping from each word, "all of it! If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands!"

Akela swallowed thickly, glancing down to her boots. Courage was a thing she wished she had in times like these, but when Geralt was angry, he was livid, and she'd learnt to keep quiet when he became as such.

Of course, she'd never done something to cause him to react like that with her, so, really, it surprised her to see he'd blown so much with Jaskier… but she remembered the sting of Yennefer's words even for her, and the way she'd cupped her cheek and pressed a parting kiss to her forehead before she'd left, and Geralt had loved her, she knew he still loved her, and he was building up the pain from that love so much it was overflowing into a fountain of pure fury.

Jaskier nodded resignedly, and Akela finally lifted her eyes to look at him. An uncommon ache glistened in his own eyes as he smiled tightly, sadly, and lifted his chin. "Right. Uh…" Geralt turned around again, walking back to his previous spot on the edge of the mountain, and Jaskier nodded. "Right, then. I'll… I'll go get the rest of the story from the others. See you around, Geralt." He turned to Akela, his smile growing a little more sincere at the gleaming tears pricking the corners of her eyes. "Akela," he said, and she shook her head, ducking it quickly to hide the tears. He strode forward and enveloped her quickly in his arms, cradling the back of her head to his chest.

"We'll see each other again, little sister," he said softly into her hair, "keep hold of that fact." She nodded against him and sniffled, reaching up to rub at her tears as he drew back and squeezed her shoulders reassuringly. He offered her a smile and she tried her best to mirror it, even as he stood back and dropped his arms.

He turned to leave, but stopped at the last minute, jerking his head lightly in Geralt's direction and leaning forward. "Look after him," he told the teen gently, and she nodded.

"Always."

And he smiled again, spared one last glance at the Witcher, and walked off, disappearing around the same corner Yennefer had only minutes ago.

Akela drew in a shaky breath, feeling her chest rattle, and swallowed thickly before turning. She took a moment, composing herself, feeling the icy wind, now suddenly loud again as though it had conformed to Geralt's temper, freeze the tears hanging on her lashes.

"That wasn't the nicest," she spoke up eventually, grateful for the noise of the breeze that just about hid the crack in her voice.

She watched with an odd kind of almost-fear as Geralt turned his head the slightest bit to the side, enough perhaps to just about see her from the corner of his eye. "Are you going to fucking leave me now, too?" He bit the words out, and it shocked her in a way she hadn't felt before. She blinked once or twice, wondering how to respond to such a thing, before suddenly feeling a swell of quiet anger in her gut.

"I wasn't going to," she told him, stepping forward again, "but if you keep being a dick then I might."

He didn't reply to that, instead twisting back, white hair blowing softly around him. Akela's shoulders dropped, and she heaved a deep sigh. "I'm not going to leave you," she said, much softer this time, walking to stand a little behind him. He glanced at her, and she noticed the fire in his eyes had died down slightly.

"You might be better off if you do," he said a moment later, and she snapped her head to look up at him, eyebrows drawn together, and the saddest look of innocent hurt painted on her face.

"You don't mean that," she muttered, barely audible, and he looked down at her. His face, hard like stone and still obviously reeling from his residual anger, relaxed immediately the moment his eyes fell on her, and he shook his head, turning back to face the valleys and lifting a hand to place on her shoulder.

"No, I don't," he said quietly. "I'm sorry."

Another gust of wind flew past then and she shivered, reaching up to grab onto his hand and simultaneously shuffling closer to him until they were touching. He didn't complain, and Akela hadn't thought he would, especially when he took her hand in his and rubbed his thumb along the back, warming it.

She sighed. "Yennefer will forgive you," she told him, not looking at him. "So will Jaskier. And me…" He rose an eyebrow, tilting his head and gazing down at her as she shrugged, the corners of her lips curling upwards. "Maybe." A hint of a smile graced his own lips as he turned back around. It could barely be called a smile, but it was a vast difference to his manner mere moments ago, so she took it in with open arms. "And all this… shit," she continued, "with your child of surprise, I mean… it will come to pass. Whether in a good way or not, it will, and you'll be free of it at last."

Silence reigned again, and it was a silence filled with thought. Finally, Geralt cleared his throat a little, and said, in a voice most unlike him, "How do you know that's what's wrong?"

"Because I know you," the girl replied immediately, and a look of recognition crossed his face as he lifted his chin, gazing out across the vast fields of dusty green and mountains.

"Maybe I'm just not worth of it," he wondered. "Maybe there's… some higher power out there who loves to toy with me. To… let me graze what could have been with my fingertips before stealing it away."

"Well, then that higher power is bullshit," Akela told him firmly. "Geralt, you are worthy of it. It and more. Things just… keep getting in the way. That's all. They're just obstacles, and we've encountered obstacles before… all we need to do is get past them. And we will."

She realised that, in a way, they'd switched roles. Just for a moment, and a weird moment it was… but he was clearly looking for the answers he wanted so badly to hear, and he was looking for them in her. Usually, it was the other way around. Akela would be worried about one of his hunts, and he'd tell her to stop, and that everything would be fine, and that he'd return to her safe and well. This time, he was searching for that assurance, and she was the only one left to give it.

She looked up at him and immediately frowned, mouth parting involuntarily as she saw a lone tear slide effortlessly down his pale cheek. She blinked a few times, wondering if she was seeing things, or thinking perhaps it had started to rain… but no.

"Geralt…" She turned more to him, softly reaching up. "Are you-"

He twisted sharply away, rubbing irately at his cheek. "Fuck," he said to himself as Akela simply stood in the same place, watching while he walked a way off, clenching and unclenching his fists.

She wasn't sure what to do. She thought back, hard, to any time in her eighteen years where she might have seen Geralt cry – shed even one tear – but there was no such thing.

The White Wolf didn't cry.

Witchers didn't cry.

Damn, Witchers weren't even supposed to have emotions!

And, though she knew that was far from true, it still struck her to see that tear edging its way from his eye. His beautiful, amber eye that she had never even thought about allowing him tears.

And, with this in mind, it became difficult for her to work out the best way around it. He had a number of ways in which he handled her when she cried – which wasn't often, but she was human, after all. If she was crying because she was upset, he'd usually take her into his arms and hold her until she calmed herself before he talked. If she was crying because she was angry, however, he would wait for her to calm down before he took her into his arms. The talking part came before or after the hug… it depended. On what, she doubted she'd ever know, but Geralt knew, and that was all that was needed.

Her arms hung loosely by her sides as she looked pitifully at him. His back was still to her, as tense and stiff as the sturdy trunk of a tree, but she could tell it was only because he didn't want her to see him.

She shook her head faintly, blinking and chewing on her cheek, almost completely at a loss. Sighing, she rose both eyebrows and nodded to herself. It was her turn, now.

"You always said it was a blessing to have the ability to cry," she said, quiet yet still loud enough for him to be able to hear. "Because having the ability to cry means you're human."

She saw his head dip slightly and began to walk towards him. "And… and you've told me too many times to count that being human isn't a bad thing. It means you're feeling things… things like loss… like Yen and Jaskier." She stopped beside him, quietly reaching to clasp his big hand in her little one, and felt relief seep through her when he squeezed it. "It's okay." He took a moment to himself, supposedly thinking, before he glanced down at Akela, and she up at him, and she smiled, and he blinked, and he looked away again, and she followed.

"I'm losing everyone." His words were slow, as though he was struggling to articulate them, and his face was so pained Akela wondered if he'd succumb to his tears once more. He shook his head, swallowing. "And it's all my doing. Yennefer… Jaskier…" His eyes roved down to meet hers, and she frowned.

"I am not going to leave you," she told him, a ferocious insistence to her words to show him that she meant them with every piece of her soul.

"What if I drive you away?" he asked, a rare naivety lacing through his tone.

She gave him a look. "I've been with you eighteen years, Geralt, and even with all the shit we've gone through I have never left you, as you've never left me. You won't drive me away, and if you do, you know I'll come straight back."

He breathed a chuckle at that. "Like a cockroach. I don't doubt it."

Akela smiled, looping her arm through his and resting her head against him. "Good."

The corners of his lips slowly lifted as he watched her, and he took in a deep breath. "What would you say if I told you I feel as though I can't avoid it any longer."

"The Princess?" she asked, and when he didn't reply, she pursed her lips and nodded. "Then I would tell you not to. Go with what you feel is right. But whatever you do, wherever you go, know I'll be beside you every step of the way."

He did know it. God, did he. He knew that, no matter how many people he lost, the bond which tied her and him together was stronger than anything he had ever known. It was wrapped around his soul and connected to hers, an invisible tie that reminded him every day that he hadn't truly lost everyone, and the one person he loved most, who mattered most, was still with him.

Akela was getting older, and despite her words, he knew that undoubtedly one day she would leave him. But, for now, he'd keep both eyes on her and a phantom hand wrapped around her heart, tugging her close for as long as he possibly could.

"Do you think we could catch up to Jaskier?"

"If he hasn't fallen off the mountain yet."

Until the end.