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

Sweet Sorrow

It was just the type of ridiculous coincidence he had come to expect from movies in America that the instant Saori laid eyes on him, the singer announced that the next dance was ladies' choice. Across the room, she smiled and shrugged her shoulders, as if to say, "Who are we to say no?" Somehow she seemed to be coming from under the stairs, framed by the flowers and foliage that hung from the banister as if a painter had asked her to pose there. He watched as she smiled and briefly greeted guests going into the ballroom. It was surreal to be back here and this house and find it inundated with people, flowers and candles, as if he had unwittingly turned up for his own wedding. He hadn't realized this was the night of the foundation's gala, and he wasn't entirely sure why he hadn't turned around as soon as it had become obvious. Some part of him felt this had been delayed long enough.

The crowded estate was a stark contrast to the reclusion of the mountains he had just come from, away from the strangeness of the city and closer to the volcanos that a part of him called home. On the same night, he had left Li in her apartment and then Saori on her roof, not knowing what to do or what to say to either one of them. Once again, he had walked away.

But now he was here, in this house again, and Saori was standing in front of him, smiling as if the last six years hadn't happened. As if she was seeing him for the first time. When she extended her hand, he noticed the long sleeves, and thought of the scars they were hiding.

"May I have the honor?"

He played along, brushing the back of her hand with his lips ever so lightly.

"The honor is all mine."

With her small hand in his, Ikki slowly made his way into the larger room, where a band was beginning the first chords of a song. People were looking at him curiously, and it wasn't entirely clear if they recognized him or if they were simply surprised by his beat-up red jeans and leather jacket. In either case, shock painted each of their expressions (one by one, as if contagious) when they realized whose hand he was holding. He turned back to look at her and found a very good impression of not caring.

Closer to the stage, she moved to stand in front of him again, and he silently let his left arm encircle her waist while her hand traveled up his back and wrapped itself around his shoulder. Taking a tentative step to the right, he found her responsive, mirroring it immediately. He tightened his grip on her waist and started a slow dance.

Ikki had never seen her dance, but it seemed like the type of thing she would be good at, the type of thing that she would be expected to be good at, much as playing piano. He thought half-heartedly of how radiant she looked in her ball gown, how perfectly her hair framed her face, how smoothly she followed his sloppy lead. It felt oddly familiar to him, the way they got closer and then stepped farther, coming and going, too close then too far. He'd been doing this the entire time he had been back in Japan, he'd done it for years before that. He knew the steps by heart. Pull, push, pull, push.

She broke the silence first.

"I didn't think you'd come back."

"I guess you didn't have a lot of faith in me."

"Well, I do try to learn from the past."

"And what does the past teach you?"

"That you tend to disappear."

"And then what?"

She searched for the answer on his face, in his eyes. "Then you turn up, I suppose."

"So you shouldn't be surprised."

She softened. "Nothing is going to take away from my surprise at having you at the Graad Foundation gala, Ikki."

He laughed. "I'm surprised at that myself."

They had all heard the story of how Julian Solo had seen her once at a party not unlike this and immediately asked her to marry him. There were no other women in this room wearing white dresses, no other women with long hair let loose. No other women he wanted to look at. He felt the curve of her waist in his hand, her fingers wrapped around his palm. This wasn't what he had come here for, dancing with her in this room with people watching, feeling the tips of her hair skimming the back of his hand and her own hand burning through his shirt. Out the corner of his eye he saw the other guests cranking their necks to peek at her, but she wasn't looking at them. She was looking at him.

When the music picked up, he gave her a smile by way of warning and turned her around, setting her skirt spinning and her hair flying. She laughed and turned back just a tad too forcefully, threatening to stumble into him. He caught her, smiling good-naturedly, and it seemed that they readjusted themselves to be a little closer than before, as close as they could get without being too close. He closed his eyes for just a second and fell into that small space between them, the rustling of her skirt, the faint hint of perfume. When he opened them again, he saw hers, and for just a moment he was fifteen years old, he was in love, he was about to get the girl.

But then of course, the song ended, and she let go of him to applaud.

After the singer bowed her thanks, Saori looked at him as if waiting for instructions. He wondered what she would do if he held her hand firmly, led her out of this house and away from this crowd, perched her on the back of his motorcycle, and just drove off. If he was looking at her today for the first time, he might try.

He did hold her hand firmly and lead her out and away, and she followed him docilely through the crowd of guests. None of them dared speak to her while she was being dragged out of her own party like this, by this savagely dressed young man who, come to think of it, did look an awful lot like the saint who invaded the Galaxian Wars all those years ago. Once they reached the end of the room and stepped into the foyer, he paused to let her catch up to his side, and they stood shoulder to shoulder at the threshold of the front door.

"Shall we talk outside?"

When she turned to answer, something behind him surprised her, and a chill settled where her hand had been. He turned around and saw Seiya, looking unsettled and uncertain in a tuxedo, eyes shifting back and forth between the two of them as if they were twins he was trying to tell apart.

"Ikki," he said simply.

"Seiya, Ikki is here. I need to speak with him outside. I'll catch up with you soon?"

Seiya eyed him up and down before nodding slowly. Ikki tried to smile, but found that he could not. So he just nodded back, and Seiya turned away and into the crowd. He heard Saori sigh with what sounded like relief.

"I'm guessing you didn't tell him," he muttered when they stepped outside.

They weren't touching anymore, but he still noticed that she tensed up. "What would you have liked me to tell him?"

"The truth," he said.

"And what would that be, exactly?"

What would that be? That Ikki had loved her for years in secret while in public he mistreated her? That he had stormed out of that very house once when she kissed him after crying in his arms? That it wasn't until he accused her of killing his brother that she finally seemed to love him back? That they had shared a bed for a night and made a plan to break her vow to the gods? That he had told her he would love her for the rest of their lives, while neglecting to mention he was married to somebody else? That he had been so enraged by the mere sight of Seiya that he had stormed out of the house (again) and tried to take that somebody else to bed? That he had changed his mind (or perhaps had his mind changed) about that, then come back here in the middle of the night, watched her stand on a roof, turned around and walked away (again)?

"I guess that's what we need to talk about."

They walked past the fountain and into a path that cut through the tree grove. About a hundred feet into the darkness, far enough that the view of the house was partially obstructed by trees and the sound of the music could barely reach them, there was a bench that Ikki remembered from his childhood. It was dark except for the faint glow of a line of solar lanterns along the edges of the path. He could barely see her face after she sat down.

"She needed a visa. When we got married, I mean. She moved here with me from China, and she needed a visa to get a better job. We didn't—" He looked around for words. "We never thought of it as marriage, a promise to stay together."

"You didn't love her?"

"That's not what I said." Ikki paused and waited. When she said nothing, he continued. "We lived together. For years. I went home to her, you know? Everyday. Even when I didn't want to. But I hadn't seen her in a year until I saw her in your house."

"May I ask why not?"

He lowered his eyes and smiled sadly. "Do you want to guess?"

"I think you expect me to guess that you left her."

"That would be your guess, wouldn't it?"

She hesitated. "Yes."

"There's that faith again. But I did leave her." The path was a pot-pourri of shadows, and his eyes followed them back to the glimpse of the house that was still visible from here, where there was light. "I went off and didn't bother about the divorce. Always meant to get to it someday."

"So you didn't come here to tell me you're going back to that woman?"

"Can you not call her that?"

"What should I call her? Your wife?"

"You're saying that to spite me."

"You left this house with her to spite me."

"I came back here that same night."

"You did. You looked at me and turned around. What am I supposed to make of that?"

"If you think I went back to her after coming here, you don't know me after all."

"I saw the way you look at her."

"I've seen the way you look at Seiya."

"And you stormed out. Should I?"

"No. I shouldn't have left that day."

"Which day?" she asks, and he feels the sting.

"Saori—"

"Do you mean when you left me alone waiting for you at the cabin? Or when you went off with your wife? Or when you came into my garden in the middle of the night to stare at me and then turn around?"

He sighed, angry even though he knew he shouldn't be.

"All of them, Saori. You pick."

"Why were you standing in that garden, Ikki?"

"Why were you standing on that roof?"

She stopped, disarmed, as if that was the one question that mattered. They fell silent, looking in opposite directions. The path continued beyond their bench, further into the darkness. The space between the lanterns grew longer gradually, until there was only the blackness of the woods.

"Are we fighting again?"

He took her hand and squeezed it. "I don't want to."

She squeezed back. "Me neither."

Ikki brushed her hand with his thumb, absently, and looked the other way again, towards the lights in the distance. If he could go back far enough, they could start over. This could still end well.

"I get that you feel misled. I just want you to know that I didn't mean for that to happen."

"It's ok, Ikki. It doesn't really matter."

He wondered what that meant, but pressed on. "I wouldn't have done that to you. You know that, don't you?"

"I think I do."

She didn't seem to be as confident in that as she had been in the other things she thought of him. That he had left his wife. That he would leave her.

"When I first saw you on the roof… I almost thought you might jump."

"Ikki, I would never do that!" she exclaimed, turning to him wide-eyed. "Never!"

"I know. I know that now. But… I think I got scared for a moment because of what you did to yourself." She was silent, so he pressed on. "With the knife, Saori."

"I'm sorry you had to see that."

He clicked his tongue in frustration. Now she was apologizing to him. This was definitely not what he had come here for.

"No, I'm the one who's sorry. For everything I said to you that night. I was so out of line… I don't know where to start."

"You were grieving."

"So were you. It's no excuse."

Thinking of their conversation in the cabin — about Shun, about grief, about blame — he felt a genuine exhaustion seep through him, powerfully heavy, pulling him down to lay his head in her lap and sleep. There was a version of tonight where nothing was resolved, nothing was settled, and he simply surrendered to all the forces that had brought him this far, drifting in the same warm current that had started so many years ago. It seemed comfortable; tempting, even.

"I wasn't trying to kill myself."

"I know you weren't. But… you hurt yourself. Bad." He could tell she was trying to hide her tears. "I think that scared me."

"I think that scared me too."

When she couldn't hide them anymore, he pulled her into his embrace, wondering what it said about him that a day didn't seem to go by when he didn't have a woman crying in his arms. It might not be his fate to hold her, to chase away her sadness, to make her whole. But he could stand in for a moment. They both could.

She sniffled, breath becoming steadier, and he decided to speak before the current could take him.

"I thought about that a lot over the last few days. I thought about what I said to you. And I came here tonight to clear everything up with you. I have something I want to tell you. I really need you to know how I feel."

Her crying seemed to intensify as she said this, and she muttered, "No, Ikki, don't, I can't."

But he insisted. "Saori, I know everything is a mess right now, but I need you to listen to just one thing I have to say to you. Please. Look at me."

He made her sit up straight again, rubbing her eyes and sniffling like a child. The light from the lanterns hit the underside of her face, creating unexpected shadows. He touched her cheek and felt her face soften under his hand. It was time for him to say what he had come here to say.

Saori braced herself as if she was going to be the one let down. She wondered again, as she had on the roof, what would happen if he simply held her, but this time the wisdom of the goddess filled her heart. This time, she knew the answer.

Shun's visit that night had felt like surreal, ambivalent solace. She remembered with a chill the coldness of his cosmo, the violet glow it cast in the darkness of that room. And yet she had felt no doubt that it was him, dear old Shun, with the same caring eyes and lovely smile. What she had seen had, almost certainly, been a projection of his cosmo, and its impressive realism spoke of untold power.

The warmth and happiness at the sight of her friend had quickly taken on the contours of resignation and worry as he explained why he had come. The possibility of war awoke something in her that had long been dormant. She walked out of the planetarium into the first light of dawn, and saw a quiet, sleepy landscape that stretched out for miles. Her cosmo unfolded gently to blanket the house, the city, the world, a quiet golden light that played with the first touch of the sun. In the distance, beyond the edges of her grandfather's estate, the city sprawled into the ocean and the snow-capped mountains lay in the horizon. She knew that in that city there were people, humans who erred and left and hated but also tried and stayed and loved, and her cosmo swelled with the desire to keep them safe. This was the world she had been assigned to protect, and it was beautiful. What else could she possibly need? She loved the world, and in that moment loving the world had been enough.

Now that love would be tested, as it had been many times before. Ikki's hand moved down to hold hers, and she observed his face in the dark, closely enough to see sadness around his eyes despite their dryness. Her throat closed with grief for him, for what she was about to deny him. Deny herself. Nothing on his face betrayed what he was going to say, but she was certain that she already knew.

Until she realized, of course, that she didn't.

"I forgive you."

The tears flowed easily, hot and welcome, relieving the pressure in her throat. She hadn't known, she hadn't known at all, and the words rocked her so violently that she was grateful to be sitting down. His arms found their place around her shaking shoulders, pulling her in again, tucking her head under his chin.

"I held on to things, Saori. I held on to things for so long. I thought it was my role, somehow, to stay mad at you when nobody else did. For myself, for Shun, for all of us."

She drew in a deep breath to find her voice. "You all went through so much..."

"We did. But sometimes unfair things happen for no good reason. Isn't that what you told me?"

It had been, she remembered it now — that night in the cabin, her body glued to his as he let himself be overwhelmed by the past. She pulled away to look at him, but lowered her head because she could not stand to hold his gaze for long.

"I didn't want all of you to keep fighting like that."

"I know you didn't. I remember what you did after we defeated Poseidon."

"I didn't know what else to do."

"That's the thing, isn't it? There was nothing you could do. There was nothing any of us could do. I'm a saint of Athena, Saori. So was Shun. The fact that you happen to be Athena is a detail. If it wasn't you, it would be somebody else. Do you understand?"

"But my grandfather—"

"We can argue about your grandfather if you want, but it has nothing to do with you. And it has nothing to do with me anymore. Or do you think I'm a saint because of him?"

That was certainly a new angle. He was right: they had been forced to come to the mansion, and all but forced to go off into remote corners of the world. But they hadn't been forced to come back. They hadn't been forced to stay. They hadn't been forced to follow her deep into the bowels of the underworld to save the earth. To save love itself.

"But when we were children—"

"What does it matter, Saori? What does it matter, what happened when we were children? This is what finally clicked for me these last few days. And don't get me wrong, you were an awful child." That was so honest that she couldn't help but smile, and he smiled back. "Just awful. And I'm not going to sit here and tell you I didn't hate you, because I did. You know I did."

She lowered her eyes again. "I almost feel like you still do."

"Because I made you feel that. And yet… you looked me in the eye and you told me that Shun's death was not my fault. Even though I didn't do the same for you."

"But it was me you were angry at."

"For what, Saori? For what?" He turned away from her, towards the path that traveled deep into the forest. "I know you couldn't have brought Shun back. That was ridiculous. And even if you could have… what kind of request is that, your life for his? I wouldn't be a saint of Athena if I could ask anyone to do that."

"I do feel like I owe all of you..."

"You owe us nothing," he said, firmly, one hand on her shoulder. "You owe us nothing, because you didn't ask to be Athena either, and these are the cards we've been dealt. You were a bratty kid, Saori, and you treated those boys like slaves because you could, but you know what? That was years and years ago, and it hasn't mattered for a long time." The gravity of his words hung in the air between them, so thick it was almost visible, and his eyes met hers over it. "I have this anger inside me," he continued, "and I know I've hurled it at you, and when I did, it felt righteous. Justified. But when I really think about it, I think about all these stupid little things you did because you were an only child in a big rich mansion and your grandfather spoiled you. And then I realized that for all these years, I've been waiting for you to make it up to me, to prove that you're on our side. And you know what's funny?"

She shook her head.

"You've proved it a thousand-fold, Saori. How could I possibly need any more proof than you've already given? How could there be any doubt in my heart that you love all of us saints and that you will do anything you can for us? When you've already done it so many times?"

She lowered her eyes. "I would do anything for all of you."

"I know you would. I've seen you do it. And yet I also see how much you hate yourself sometimes. I've seen it for years. This is what I wanted to come back here."

"You're the only person I ever talked to about that," she said, remembering a night six years ago when she had woken up from a nightmare and finding herself in his arms.

"Maybe because I was the only person who ever hated you as much as you hated yourself. But I think that's also why I had to be the one to forgive you." He was crying too, now, and it made her feel so much less alone. "I look at you and you're so beautiful but you're so sad, and I think for the longest time I wanted to just— just hold you and make you feel better. I think that's why I fell in love with you. I did love you, Saori, all these years."

His choice of tense did not go unnoticed, but she let him continue.

"But that's not my role. I see that now. I'm not saying that my heart isn't going to skip a beat if I see you again in six years, or sixty for that matter, because I know that it will, and if you tried to change my mind right now, I'd be in big fucking trouble." He smiled a small smile, an apology in it for the choice of words, and for a moment she wondered if the world really would be enough. But after a pause, he continued. "But I also know that's not what marriage is."

Then understanding flashed and she knew that he was lying, that he was flattering her. She could not have tempted him any more than he could have tempted her.

"What I can give you," he continued, "is this. I forgive you. From the bottom of my heart, with all my love. Your mistakes are not who you are. I know who you are. You're a better person than me, Saori. You always have been. And I hope one day you can forgive me."

And she looked up to tell him she already had, and he leaned in and pulled her to him, and on his lips she tasted both of their tears, and against her chest she felt both of their hearts, and she knew those hearts would keep on beating, even if they might also swell, even if they might also break. They stood like that for a long time until Ikki let go of her gently, and smiled.

"Where are you going next?"

"I'm going home, Saori."

Alright, clearly this wasn't ready by the end of October, but now here it is. :) But it's the last day of the year, I've had the epilogue sitting in my computer for a while now, and I wanted to wrap this up before 2021 begins. Posting the epilogue now...