Author's notes: The burnout, ladies and gentlemen, has come to an end! Witness with terror the amazing, incredible, fantastic, splendorous, awe-inspiring, terrific, [ERROR: LIST OF ADJECTIVES ENDED] continuation and, eventually, conclusion to Tide of Destiny! Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Book 2: Road of Vengeance!!

BOOK 2: ROAD OF VENGEANCE

Chapter 80: Side by Side

Samuel Thunderburp stared at the six adventurers who hobbled into the Five Flagons with disbelief. "Cor!" he exclaimed, blinking at Harrian's bedraggled party. "I've been wondering when you were going to be showing your faces here again! After you disappeared three days ago, I've been worried sick!"

Harrian, whose eyes were dark and sunken, the only part of his emotionless expression that gave away his intense inner trauma, passed a small pouch full of gold coins to Thunderburp wordlessly before lurching away towards the stairs.

The halfling accepted the pouch, pocketing the coins neatly, as he stared after the thief. "Swipe me! What's happened to him? He looks as if he's had the beasts of the Abyss chasing after him!"

"Do not jest about such matters, Thunderburp," Jaheira snapped back, a deep frown on her face. "Simply leave him to his own devices for a few days. We shall attend to him; have no fear of that."

Thunderburp retreated swiftly, hands raised in submission. "As you wish, my friend, as you wish. I meant not to interfere, merely to express my concern." He offered a weak, watery smile. "He don't look well, though. Is there anything I can do?"

Anomen took one look at the other four party members, three of which had recently been imprisoned under dire circumstances and all of whom had suffered varying degrees of trauma. "Let us retire to our rooms… have food and a warm drink sent up, if that is not too much trouble," he requested softly, his own eyes sunken and haunted. Every single one of them had been through hell of a certain kind.

"No problem, no problem," Samuel assured them, waving up the stairs. "And it's on the house. You just get yourselves upstairs, and have a rest, hmm? Don't you worry about anything; old Sam will take care of it."

The party trooped up the stairs wearily, nobody managing to utter a single word as fatigue wore them down. One by one they filtered into their respective rooms, all to fall into a deep, restful sleep, planning to recover before making any big decisions on their next course of action.

All except Jaheira. The druid lingered in the corridor, waiting for the others to disappear behind closed doors before she walked towards her own room… and went straight past it, knocking firmly on the door to Harrian's room right next to it.

She frowned with consternation as there was no answer. So he was probably sulking; it was only to be expected and, to be fair, he did have a lot to sulk about. Taking a leaf out of his book, the druid pushed open the door, and was mildly surprised to find that it wasn't even locked. Harrian had either not expected visitors, or wanted them to come.

The thief stood facing away from her, his gaze fixed on a point outside the window, hands clasped behind his back. From the state of the room – a chair lay on the floor, drawers on the desk hung open – it was quite clear that he had not tended to the destruction caused by his capture.

There was a long silence, Jaheira not wanting to breach his concentration too roughly, until Harrian slowly turned, facing her. Although his face wore an expressionless mask, there was a haunted look to his eyes which made her spine shiver. "Why are you here?" the thief asked mildly.

Irritation, caused by fatigue, tugged at her. "Why do you think?" Jaheira retorted, placing her hands on her hips and raising an eyebrow. Although she'd never seen him this bad, she knew what he was like. He'd have gone into a foul mood, his self-esteem at rock bottom, and find it impossible to consider that somebody might actually care enough to try and pull him back to the world of the living.

"A goodbye?" he asked, and there was a brief pause as the druid realised he was deadly serious. "Letting me know that you're getting the hell out of here? Not that I blamed you for leaving me before… it's for the best, you know. Leave. Save yourself – you almost managed it last time."

Jaheira approached him, shock registering on her features. She lay a hand on his arm, but he pulled back slowly. "You think I left to go to the Harpers to save myself?" she asked quietly, frowning.

"Are you saying you didn't?" His voice wasn't accusing, merely curious. Irenicus had plainly done more than just physical damage to him.

The druid lowered her head and took a deep breath. "I left… for you," she started slowly. "Had I stayed, the Harpers would have come in force… and kept coming, and kept coming. This stopped being about you when Galvarey died; it became about me and my… treachery."

"Then why did you leave? We could have kept you safe." Despite his reassuring words, his tone was devoid of emotion.

"No, you couldn't have," she whispered. "I went to the Harpers to keep you safe. Once I left you, they stopped caring about you. I knew that, if I surrendered myself to them, I could easily get you out of the situation… and whilst saving myself from their wrath would have been harder, it would –"

"They would have executed you," Harrian said firmly, a little of his old self creeping into his words as his expression darkened. "And you know it." There was a long, taut silence as he looked away and walked back up to the window. "Why did you do that for me? What makes me worth dying for?"

"Harrian…"

"I'm a monster, Jaheira," he whispered, the mask slipping away as his voice shook with fear. "You saw what happened back there… what I became. I'm nothing more than a… a monster."

She tried again to reach him, clasping his shoulder, and he didn't pull away this time. "You are no monster," she said with absolute certainty. "This, I know for sure. Whatever Irenicus did to you –"

"All he did was show me what I truly am," Harrian spat. "He took away the shell of humanity that surrounded my true self… and what was left behind was the monster that lives inside of me." He looked at her, and she could see the pain and anguish in his eyes. "I'm one of the Children, Jaheira. And all Irenicus did was show me just what my Bhaal blood makes me." He sank onto the bed, lowering his head.

She knelt before him, grasping his hands tightly. "Irenicus has released the darkness within you; that is true. But you are no monster. To be a monster is to be a creature of complete and utter darkness, and to not show a shred of remorse for heinous actions. You're showing remorse, and you haven't even committed an atrocity." She attempted a weak smile, which he didn't return.

"Then I'm heading down that path," he whispered, closing his eyes tight and shaking his head slightly. "And I don't know how to stop myself… If I'm not a monster, then I'm becoming one, fast."

"You're not. You can't. Your heart's too pure for that," Jaheira murmured, raising a hand to stroke the side of his face gently, her own anguish increasing tenfold at the sight of the pain he was in.

He raised a hand to cover hers, squeezing it slightly. "I can't… I don't… even know what to do, or how to…" His voice trailed off weakly, lost in the despair that had overtaken him.

"Have faith," Jaheira answered quietly, and he slowly raised his head to look at her. There was a long, meaningful silence which still wasn't broken when she moved forwards and kissed him lightly.

As her lips met his and lingered there, Harrian felt as if his brain had exploded from the sudden switch in sensations, from despair to pleasure in the blink of an eye. Without even thinking, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer to him, reciprocating in the kiss as her very presence managed to chase the shadows out of his mind.

Then, finally, sanity kicked in and he pulled back slowly. By then they were both on the bed, him with his back against the wall and a giddy feeling in his head he had to push out before managing to speak. "Jaheira… you shouldn't…"

She ran a hand through his hair lightly, the smallest of teasing smiles tugging slightly at the corner of her mouth. "Too late," she murmured, then her eyes grew more serious. "I almost lost you back in there. When Bodhi bit you, it was as if my whole world had crumbled." She lowered her hand to allow her finger to run softly over the pair of incisions on his neck the healing spell hadn't banished. "I won't let you slip away again."

Although he had a thousand answers, a thousand reasons to keep her at bay, Harrian didn't have the strength to summon them as he kissed her again. Maybe it was wrong, foolish, and destructive, but right then he needed her there; needed the woman he loved.