Chapter 8

They touched down a while later on an isolated, grassy isle with a few rock outcroppings and plenty of shade. They hadn't said a word on the way over, and not once had he looked behind him to make sure she was following. Granted, he could sense her ki, but still…

Even now, with his back to her, he went and stood rigidly at the sandy shore, folding his arms in an edgy silence. His presence unnerved her, as much as it called to her. And after the incident with his brothers…

"Nail…"

He flinched, but didn't turn around.

"Not that I don't appreciate the rescue," she began hesitantly, her voice still shaking, "but after almost getting gang-raped by your friends, I don't know how comfortable I am around namekians right now," she said, and took a deep breath. "Even you."

His ears twitched, and after a drawn out moment, he said quietly over his shoulder, "I won't touch you."

"But you don't seem…" she swallowed hard. "Stable." She envisioned him snapping any moment, and turning to finish the job. It would eradicate any of the fond memories she had of Nail, casting them in the black ominous shadow of an unforgivable crime.

His shoulders bunched up, and he spun around to face her. His once kind face was now bitter, angry, conflicted… But not lustful, she noticed in unsatisfied relief, as she still flinched under his gaze.

"I would have killed them," he seethed, his words pained, "You turned me against my own brothers, Axle! Beings that I am sworn to protect and nurture!"

Even though it was true, the accusation hurt. As though she'd done it on purpose. "I did nothing but breathe your air," she spat. "You know I never intended this,"

"If you hadn't sought to misuse the dragonballs for your own selfish needs, then-"

"Then you wouldn't have any marks on your perfect record. Yeah, I know," she snorted.

"It's more than that," he said heatedly, and then winced as though at his own body. Then he swiped at the air in a frustrated gesture. "It would have been better had you never set foot on this planet!"

She choked, feeling her hands begin to tremble. "I couldn't agree with you more, so stop berating me already!" she snapped.

He bit back his words and pursed his lips. After a moment, he continued, taking a different approach. "I don't understand," he began, "why you didn't inform us that you were part namekian." He stared at her in offended curiosity, having no awareness of hitting a sore point dead on.

Her hands clenched in fists and she struggled to maintain her composure. She sighed heavily and shook her head. After what she'd done here, he had a right to know, didn't he?

"If you didn't have any expectations of me, then you wouldn't have been disappointed."

He frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Etrack," she reluctantly began, "was a perfect being. He made the universe a better place just by existing. Honorable, wise, powerful but disciplined… He had more capacity to love than most Rameumptum mothers.

"I'd expected a planet full of Etracks when I came here," she said, her voice growing soft, "And I wasn't far off in my assumptions."

He studied her, the hard edge having disappeared from his expression.

"His blood may run through my veins, Nail, but I am no namekian."

He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

"And you know my mother was a leader. An enforcer of policies to benefit the greater good. She died for a cause." Axle's next words were bitter with self-loathing, and she looked at her hands in disgust. "And here I am, anyone's pawn for the right price, who has spent the greater part of her years harming more than helping my fellow species. I am a disappointment," she spat, "to both legacies."

She turned her back to him. It was all too much; the trauma of the attempted rape, her own insecurities, the conflicted but powerful feelings she felt for Guru's alpha son, who seemed to resent her very existence. "Stand guard elsewhere, Nail," she said shakily, blinking the sting away from her eyes. "It pains me to even look at you."

She listened half-heartedly for his departure, but he didn't leave. She felt the air stir behind her, and she turned to see him kneeling at her feet in seeming supplication, as close to her as he could possibly get without touching her. His head was completely bowed, his earlier animosity replaced by something else…

"And it pains me," he breathed, his tone ragged, anguished…"to be without you."

Oh, hell… Her heart lodged in her throat and she threw up her emotional barriers a second too late, reflexively resisting the notion that his words were as all-encompassing as they sounded. "Nail," she breathed. "It's the…drive talking."

He looked up. His brows were drawn tight in the center, and his eyes glistened. "No," he said determinedly as he stood to his feet, and locked her in his gaze. He opened and closed his mouth three times before speaking. "I never thought my life was boring until I met you," he said, a rueful smile creasing his eyes. He brought a hesitant finger up and tapped the tip of her nose. "You're irreverent, you break rules," he mused, the corners of his lips lifting, "you've got the personality of a wayward ki blast…"

Agh… Nail. Her vision burred as he continued, bringing his finger up to her forehead, "I was addicted to your mind," he said, then dropped his wrist and pointed at her chest, "and drawn to your heart, long before I truly appreciated…" he ran his hand along the curve of her body, "this."

Losing the remainder of her reservations, she let the water in her eyes spill over, and leaned against him, hugging his waist. "Then this is truly, truly tragic," she whispered.

After a moment, he relaxed and circled his arms around her, resting his lips on her brow. Axle thought his honest embrace was possibly the warmest thing she'd ever felt.

"How long do we have?" she asked, not wanting to know the answer.

His torso expanded with a deep breath, and he sighed heavily against her skin. "The dragonballs will awaken tomorrow."

Suddenly the day she'd been waiting for was here all too soon, and a fresh set of tears rolled down her cheeks. "If it were my choice, I'd package you up and take your alpha ass with me."

A humorless chuckle escaped his lips, "And if I could keep you here without turning my entire race against each other, then you wouldn't be getting on that ship."

She laughed without mirth, and wiped her eyes on his chest. "So I guess we make the most of our time left, eh?"

He leaned back and quirked a brow at her, surprised. "The most?"

She felt the blood rush to her face. "Oh, uh…not that. I mean, I don't…I've never…" she huffed, wondering why it was so difficult to tell him something that usually trickled off her lips with ease. It's because you want him, Axle, she admitted to herself, and you know you'd make an exception to the rule if your destiny ran alongside his.

Her uncharacteristic stammering cued him in on what she couldn't express, and his eyes widened dramatically. "You've never procreated?" he asked, and she had to stifle a laugh at his innocent way of automatically associating sex with creating life. It was a sweet reminder of what the act was for, the purity of his intent making her curse her own resolve.

Nail was the only male she'd ever met that would inevitably understand the power and significance of it, not cheapening the experience by downplaying it. He might even understand, instead of curse in frustration like her past flings.

"No. I haven't."

He seemed amazed, and…relieved? It made her wonder if he would have been jealous had she been the universe ho. At his unspoken 'Why?' she continued.

"Because it's mine," she said flatly. "I've bartered my integrity since joining up with Two Stroke, and have lost every facet of my innocence but that. Everything else has been compromised. Bought. And I'm not about to cross that line for the most excruciating what-could-have-been only to make my biggest regret of Namek more poignant," she finished, not feeling half as confident as she sounded. She added as a heartfelt afterthought, "Besides, I'd never get over you." She didn't give voice to a hunch that she never would anyway.

He pursed his lips and nodded understanding. She gaped. He'd just accepted it. No arguing, no name-calling, no futile attempts to change her mind… Just accepted it. He was too good to be real. It almost made her change her mind. She could almost hear Two Stroke's voice in the background. Axle, she could picture him saying, when a four can get a ten, you make exceptions.

Had Nail pressed the issue right then, she probably would have caved. But he didn't. "Perhaps it's better that I don't know," he said sincerely. "Or else even Porunga would have a difficult time suppressing the drive in me. Memories can be a powerful thing…"

"Porunga?"

"The third wish will be to restore the binding in those of us that your female namekian pheromones broke."

The news relieved and disappointed her. It would erase any trace of her presence here. Even with Nail. Then she realized there would be no more wishing after that. She snorted, thinking about her crew's intent when they came here. "So much for retiring early with armloads of wealth."

"That was your wish?" he asked incredulously.

"My crew's," she shrugged. "The universe is a corrupt place, Nail. You take what you can get."

The thought disturbed him, but he held his tongue. His reaction amused her, and reminded her of so many other times she'd had the pleasure of shocking him with her unorthodox education, before all hell broke loose. She sighed.

How I'll miss you, boy… She looked away from his face, and rested her cheek against the swell of his chest, absently tracing a finger lightly along the red-corded lining of his stomach. If only there could have been another way…

His body tensed, and he gasped convulsively. He caught her hand gently in his own and brought it to his lips. "Such small gestures," he whispered, his breath tickling her fingers, "yet I feel your touch all the way to my toes."

"Mmm…" She smiled sadly, and pulled back enough to see his face. "I heard that small gestures are what my grandmother used to seduce Etrack," she commented in forced playfulness. Axle figured that if she only had a few hours left, she wasn't going to spend it moping. "I could show you, though you might get frustrated…"

His glazed eyes widened slightly and the barest hint of a smile lit his face. He ran his fingers under the hem of her vest, lightly grazing her skin with his talons, before leaning down and touching his lips lightly against hers. "I'm sure it'll be worth it," he muffled against her mouth, kissing her.

Axle arched back in his embrace and wrapped her arms around his neck, giving way to the bittersweet intimacy in hopes that maybe…just maybe…they could forget that their love was doomed - if only until the morrow came.


.

It didn't work. Instead of prolonging the inevitable, their heated session only made it come all too soon. Nail hadn't been surprised when Axle actually let him carry her to retrieve the dragonballs. He'd flipped upside down as he flew, with her warm body on top of him, covering his face and neck with residual kisses. But despite her actual nearness, he felt like he'd already lost her.

Wordlessly, they had landed at Guru's dome and he collected the sack of magical orbs that would take her away from him. Nail was half-tempted to drop the balls in the lake as they soared over it on the way to her ship.

When they arrived, Axle - the female who hadn't cried at the death of her shipmates, the alien who had blown his leg off without hesitation, the one whose past had made her callused beyond anything he'd ever come across - clung to him as though he were a tree in a windstorm. "I don't want to leave you!" she hissed, a small sob escaping her lips.

The ache that he'd been fighting all morning suddenly enflamed his heart, spread through his chest, up his throat and managed to make its way to his tear ducts. He clutched at her and buried his face in her hair. He would have said something reassuring, but there was nothing reassuring to say. He felt like his world was ending and wondered if Guru's passing, when it came, would even compare to the loss he now felt. This female, the cause of the biggest upheaval in his life, was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

She finally released him and he stared down at her wet green eyes, and committed every detail of her face to memory. Her lips quivered, and her gray shimmering skin glistened in the suns' light, and again, Nail marveled at how such a toughened creature could suddenly seem so soft.

He swallowed the lump in his throat. "You ready?" he asked shakily, realizing that his grip on her was still firm.

"Never," she whispered, before pushing away from him and wiping her eyes roughly with the back of her hand. "But fate isn't on our side. Nor is time." She sniffed and looked away, her arms folded across her chest. She stared at the ground and kicked at some invisible rock in the dirt. "Go on."

He pursed his lips and nodded. Opening the sack, Nail emptied its contents onto the ground. Seven starry balls twinkled with a magic all of their own, pulsating with power and promise. In a voice almost too soft for the occasion, Nail chanted the dragon call.

The sky blackened immediately, and the Eternal Dragon snaked up into the sky, its massive form dwarfing the entire landscape. Porunga's serpentine head bowed and its eyes flashed as the god saw Nail.

Axle gasped, and fell back. "Holy shit!" she squeaked. "What a beast!"

The dragon growled at her unflattering summation, and Nail might have found her reaction amusing, had it not been such a dreaded occasion for the both of them.

Porunga took a deep breath. "Ask…" The god's voice thundered down and jolted his nerves. It never mattered how many times Nail saw it. The awesome presence of the Eternal Dragon always stole his breath. It took a moment to find his voice, and even longer for the words to make it past his tongue.

"Porunga, restore the alien spaceship."

He watched and Axle gawked as the polluted heap of metal was encompassed in a great, swirling aura. It trembled and shifted until it regained its original shape - sitting whole and unmolested atop Namek's soil.

"Incredible," she whispered next to him.

"Ask," bellowed the dragon again in a great bass whoom.

Nail clenched his fists and steeled his resolve. "Restore the lives of those lost in its crash."

Materializing above the ground they'd been buried under, stood Axle's three odd-looking shipmates, gaping at their bodies as though surprised to find them attached to their necks.

"Ask," cued the dragon one last time, causing the resurrected aliens to scream and collapse in fright when they saw the source of the great voice.

Nail locked stares with Axle one last time, before making the wish, trying desperately to portray with emotion that which words could not express. She clenched her teeth and shut her eyes. For the next request to work, she would need to physically distance herself from him, or else her pheromones would undermine the wish.

"Axle," he whispered, holding his hand out to her.

"Just do it," she choked. Then, with visible effort, she levitated with a hanging head and floated over to her dazed shipmates.

Forcing sound through his constricted throat, and blinking back the water standing in his eyes, Nail cried out, "Restore the repression in the namekians who were affected by the female's presence."

He hated the words the second they left his mouth, and even more so when he felt the change. He had no idea how tense his body had been until it relaxed and he stood there feeling…restrained, lacking, incomplete.

This is wrong, he thought wildly, barely noticing the crackling thunderous departure of Porunga. His head swiveled in Axle's direction, whom was none-too-gently ushering her confused comrades towards the ship, looking anywhere but at him.

So wrong… He stood there, battling the inner conflict. He could either abide by Guru's will as he'd always done, or go against it for the first time in his life. After several agonizing seconds of indecision, Nail acted.

One could say it was on impulse.


.

"No wish, Two Stroke," Axle grated as she shoved the rubber-skinned captain up the ramp. "Namek is off limits, and so are its dragonballs." She used a tone he would recognize, as he knew her well. With a huff, Two Stroke shook his head and moved on, knowing it was pointless to argue.

Sprocket ambled up beside her, his mandibles clicking in incredulity. "You mean-neh we came all the way here-eh, to-"

"Die on the way down only to be revived by its kind-hearted people!" she snapped at him, hurling him forward. Gauge slithered by then, knowing better than to say anything at all.

On reflex, she snarled at him as he passed, but that was all. Even he seemed surprised that she didn't' take advantage of his proximity to strangle him.

Once up, she flattened her hand against the entrance, and rested her forehead against her knuckles. She literally had forced herself onward, battling her desire to stay with sheer stubbornness.

Unable to ignore her pull to him any longer, she turned for one last look at the most bittersweet encounter of all her life.

And he was already gone.

A small part of her was relieved, but the rest of her wanted to slump on the floor in great hiccupping sobs.

"Goodbye, Nail," she whispered. "Pity it had to end."

She turned only to be snatched from behind. Her vision spun wildly as the arms around her waist lifted her up and landed her on top of the ship. Before she could make sense of what was happening, he spun her around, grabbed her face with both hands, and kissed her.

Nail!

She squealed against his mouth, against the forced, frenzied lip lock. With one hand still clamped on the back of her neck, he pressed her bodily against him until it was perceptively obvious that the restraint on his desire was broken for the second time.

"What…what are you doing?" She stammered as he moved his face to her neck and kissed it as though she had a mouth there, too.

"I want to remember this," he breathed, "Your touch. How you feel. How you make me feel."

Her eyes watered, and she clutched at him desperately, losing all sense of reality from the intensity of his declaration. "Come with me, Nail. Please. Guru can find another"

The sound of shuffling feet was heard on the ramp below. "Axle!" Sprocket's voiced yanked her out of the blissful moment.

"You know I can't." Nail lifted his head, and rested his brow against hers, his eyes wet and anguished. "Never forget, Axle." With one last, deep kiss he exploded into the sky.


.

With his heart lodged in his throat, Nail watched from a distance as the ship ignited and ascended into the air with all the calculating precision of technology. He felt like it was taking with it a piece of his soul.

Axle's scent still clung to him with determined tenacity, and he savored it, feeling as though his chest would collapse from anguish.

But at least he was whole.

Guru's inquisitive voice inevitably came, drenched with all the bleeding concern of a worried parent.

But Nail ignored the Father. If Guru, in all his wisdom, had destined him for any other calling besides the alpha son, Nail would have left Namek this day…with her.

And a small part of him couldn't help but to resent the patriarch for it.