"No, no this is just not fair," Selene huffed as she stumbled out of the elevator, dragging her supplies with her. She dumped the mass of blankets and pillows on the floor, freeing up her arms, allowing her to prop her hands on her hips as she stared down at the gorgeous bengel that was currently curled up in a ball on one of the gravity rings' fold down seats.
The cat stared back at her, turquoise eyes blinking slowly.
"This is sneaky, very very sneaky," she continued to bitch as she bent down to pick him up, snuggling him into her arms. "Looking this cute when I'm supposed to be annoyed with you is pretty much cheating."
The cat stiffened in her arms and she glanced down in surprise. That wasn't right, surely he knew she wasn't being serious, that she'd never think that? She kissed the top of his head and moved over to the pile of soft blankets and sat down cross legged, letting him settle in her lap.
"I'm not annoyed with you," she promised him, stroking his soft fur. "I love you, you know I can never stay mad at you."
She tickled behind his ear, in the spot where, in human form, he'd had a little moon and star inked. She had expected him to act as he usually did, melting into a boneless heap of purring fluffball, rolling over to reveal his belly, but he didn't; he stayed a stiff, unyielding ball. She could feel the anxiety running through his smaller body, felt the tense way he held himself, the way he seemed to be holding himself back.
"I think we need to talk, don't you?"
The cat lifted his head when she bent down so he could donk against her chin. She automatically dropped a kiss on his upturned nose in return.
"I'm sorry I left you, but I needed time to think and I needed to be on my own to do it. You've had time to get your head around it, you were prepared because you already knew about it, I didn't. I was blindsided by a mass of unpleasant information that I didn't know what to do with. Can you understand that?"
The cat didn't acknowledge her words, but she could tell he was listening, John always listened, no matter what form he was in.
"Are you going to change back so we can talk about this properly?" she asked quietly.
There was no demand or accusation in her tone, something John appreciated. He'd love nothing more than to change back and be able to pull her into his arms and never let her go again, to tell her he was sorry and that he loved her more than she would ever know. But for once his body and mind were out of sync, they weren't cooperating, they weren't doing as he wanted them to. He couldn't seem to clear his mind enough to focus, to calm the racing of his heart and the worry that he'd be stuck like this for a long time.
"I'll take that as a no," she murmured, stroking him softly. "You're obviously still upset with me, and I can understand that. Do you want me to start talking instead? You know that I can talk for England. Do you want me to try to explain how I was feeling and what I was thinking? Do you think that will help?"
She was giving him a chance to fix things for which he was grateful. Even though she had asked for time and said she would be home the next day, she had dropped everything to comply with his request. She had come when he had needed her even though it might not have been what she wanted. She was here, she was willing to talk and she was prepared to put in a lot of one sided effort to try to make things better for him.
He meowed softly, nuzzling his head into her neck. This was exactly what he needed, to feel her near him so warm and reassuring, to feel that sense of calm she always emanated, the one that had allowed him to open up to her so fully in the first days of their relationship, to be himself with her the way he'd never been able to with anyone else.
Maybe him not being in human form would help her to talk, it would certainly mean she could let it all out without waiting for his input, which in turn meant she was likely to tell him things she wouldn't if it were a two way conversation, allowing him to better understand her and where her mind had gone. He knew that she hadn't been deliberately punishing him by leaving, this he was sure of now, and that knowledge went a long way to calming his panicked mind, allowing him to relax a little in her arms.
Selene stretched out on the blankets, propping a few pillows under her head and settled him on her chest. He felt himself relax a little more as she started a gentle, rhythmic stroking, her heart seeming to beat in time to her movements, further soothing his frazzled nerves. This was good, this gave him hope that they could get through it.
"I know why you did it," Selene started. She didn't really have a plan on what she was going to say or how she was going to say it. Instead she was relying on her instincts, starting with the first thing that came to mind. "I understand the urge to go full vengeful god on someone that has wronged the person you love most in the world."
He looked up at her, head tipped to the side questioningly.
"Ridley," she reminded him. "When I heard how she had endangered your life so selfishly, thinking only of herself, I was ready to kill her."
His whiskers twitched like he would have been smiling if he'd had the ability.
"But I didn't," she reminded him, "because I respected you enough to know that it wasn't anything to do with me. We weren't together then, it was your choice what you did about it. It was in your past and it wasn't my place to fight your past battles for you."
He bobbed his head, accepting that. She was right, she had let it go, she had respected him enough to not get involved. Sure, she had talked to Ridley about it at her bachelorette party, something he had found out later that night at the hotel, but she had still been fair to the woman and to him.
"I understand why you felt like you needed to see him for yourself, because if I didn't know Ridley, if she was just a faceless name, I'd probably feel the same. If it was just a rescuee that you'd helped, then I could have coped with that, but she's your friend and she took advantage of you, she used your friendship and played on that. I can't forgive her for that, but I accepted it, because you did. Does that make sense?"
One paw flexed on her chest, which she took as a yes.
"I can understand why you felt like you needed to do something, knowing everything Nathaniel had done, to me and others, as well as his criminal record," she sighed, her fingers digging deeper into his fur like she needed to anchor herself to him in some way. "That really scared me, because I never knew any of that. I realise now that I was being naive and stupid, just accepting and believeing what he said as the truth and never looking into it myself. But I guess that's my problem, I'm too willing to believe and to trust, it's something I'm working on."
Small, needle sharp claws, dug in, just a little, showing his displeasure at that. She didn't need to change. One of the things he loved about her was her ability to trust and her faith in people, her willingness to believe, to give people the benefit of the doubt until they did something to prove otherwise. She wasn't the one at fault here, Nathaniel was, he had taken advantage of her and her feelings for him as surely as Ridley had with him. The difference was that Ridley had learnt her lesson and been punished for it, Nathaniel had not, he was still doing the very same thing.
"I could handle what Nathaniel did to me, I had come to terms with it and made my peace with it, I'd moved on, well, as best I could. But hearing everything he was capable of, coupled with the fact that he had apparently found the resources to vanish off the face of the earth so much so that even you couldn't find him, that truly scared me. Not for myself, but for us, for the family. Having someone like that in our lives filled me with dread, he could fuck up so much for us. He's poison, he messes up everything he touches and I didn't want to be the reason that someone like that had us on his radar. I didn't want him involved in any way."
She paused, stopping to look out of the clear sides of the gravity ring, to look out over the vastness of space. She knew why John loved it up here, she did too. Looking out and seeing the universe stretching out before you was a humbling experience, it made you realise just how small and insignificant you really were.
"That was what I had to get used to, I think. To get my head around the fact that there had always been a chance that he would find out about us and cause problems, but ignorance was bliss. I guess, since I had gone so long without hearing from him or seeing him, I just hoped that he had just grown bored and moved on."
She looked down into the soft eyes of her husband, even if they were currently residing in the face of a cat. Eyes she loved so much that were now regarding her with total understanding. This was easier somehow, to talk when he couldn't answer her, like she was talking to herself in some way. She knew the cat was him, but seeing his face, seeing emotions play out on it would have made it far too real.
John wanted to hold her so badly. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and promise that nothing bad would ever happen to her again as long as he had breath left in his body. He wanted to promise her that he would protect her, to give her back the security he had inadvertently taken away with his actions.
He closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of her body against his and tried to focus on the energy core inside him, the one that held his power to shift. Ever since Nikos had described it he had never had a problem locating it, in building that power up and sending it out through his body, flowing through veins, tendons, muscles until his very being changed. But this time it was like there was a block there, an impenetrable wall that he just couldn't break through. He huffed out a frustrated breath. All he wanted to do was comfort her, even just a little.
"I hate the fact that I hoped, even a little, that he had moved on and that he had found another to take my place, to keep him occupied and away from me. I feel so much guilt for that and, if you had asked me, I'd have agreed with you and said that you had to do what you did."
John crept a little closer, tucking his head into the crook of her neck, wanting to show her how much he loved her, to tell her that she shouldn't think that way, but he couldn't. There was very little he could do in his current state, but he was determined to do his best, no matter how useless it was.
"But then it would have been my choice, we could have put safeguards in place, I could have warned my family and made sure they were safe and in the loop too. I would have had some kind of control over the situation, flimsy though it may have been, and that would have made it easier for me."
A soft purr began to vibrate through his body, the feel and sound of it calming Selene as she continued to talk, continued to open her heart as she should have done earlier in the day. Knowing that he was listening, that he would take it all on board and learn from it, because that's what her husband did. They had both fucked up a time or two, they had both yelled and gotten mad at each other, they had both left the room needing to calm down, but afterwards they had always talked it out. Those times were nothing compared to this, but that didn't mean it wouldn't serve as a learning experience just the same way and then maybe some good would come out of it.
"I spent so long looking over my shoulder after he left. That was why I moved from the house we shared and went back to my parents, although I didn't stay there long. He knew their house and I had far too many times of seeing his car on the street or feeling like he was constantly there, outside their house, watching me. I called the police, who issued him with a warning but, even when I didn't see his car, I knew he'd be spotted in the area time and time again. About four months after I moved in with my parents I agreed, after a lot of persuasion, to go on a blind date with a friend of a friend. Nathaniel must have either heard about it or been following me again, as he sat at the bar in the restaurant the entire time. He never approached us, but it was enough to let me know that he'd make things difficult if I ever saw the man again. So I never did."
John could barely believe what he was hearing, understanding more and more why she had reacted the way she had. If Nathaniel had been like that with her going on a date, he couldn't imagine how much she would have worried about Nathaniel ever finding out about their marriage.
"Mum and Dad lent me the money for the deposit on the flat," Selene continued, unaware of the thoughts pinging around in John's brain, "because he had left me with almost nothing and what little I had managed to save from doing readings he knew nothing about, I spent on clothes and a new phone with a new number. I didn't want to take anything away from the house that he had paid for, I didn't want to owe him anything. I wanted to prove that I could make it on my own, to provide for myself and not need anyone for anything."
He remembered how strict she had been about never taking money from him, when they were first dating. She had wanted to pay for things, to go halves on dates, to even pay for her own wedding dress, all things that he would have happily covered. He remembered how pissed off she had been when he had bought her flat just before their mission in the Zero-XL. At the time he had thought it was only because she saw it as him giving up, preparing for the worst that she didn't want to think about, but now he realised just what it might have seemed like to her. He had made a decision to buy her home, her sanctuary, her safe place, without asking her. If they had split up she would have lost more than just the relationship but her home too. No wonder she had been annoyed, but she had talked it through with him, understood his motivation for it and then she had chosen to marry him, right there and then, as a sign of her commitment and faith in them.
This wasn't the first time he had messed up, she just hadn't let him know how badly then. Guilt threatened to overwhelm him and he had to close his eyes and lean into her hand to ground himself. He had done it with the best of intentions, out of a need to protect, not to control. And she had never blamed him for it, that in itself should be all the proof he needed that she loved him and that they would get through this.
Selene stroked the tip of one finger around his ears, back and forth, loving the silky soft feel of his fur, covering the delicate skin like a coating of velvet. She heard EOS moving closer and looked up to give her a little smile of reassurance. She was back now, she'd look after him.
"The flat was my own little sanctuary, the place where I felt completely safe. No one from our old crowd knew where I lived, so no one who knew Nathaniel could tell him where I had moved to. The landlady, as you know, was a friend from my ritual circle, a pagan too, and that was part of the appeal. I think that was why I felt like I needed to go there today, to retreat to my own personal island and just be. I knew, logically, that I was probably safer on the Island with you, or here, simply due to the location, but that didn't matter in my head. I needed to remind myself that I was safe on my own, that I was not the same person who escaped him, that I'm better now. You made me better, you know that, right?"
John gave a tiny little meow in answer, a sound that could be taken any way, it could mean anything. Yes, no, maybe, tell me again how much you love me. She went with the last one, because it seemed that her man was needing a little more reassurance than usual, something she knew was her fault and felt so guilty about. She knew that she had scared him, she knew that he was hurting, and she wished she could take that pain away as easily as she had caused it. Unfortunately life was painful no matter which way you swung it, pain was inevitable, something that could only be avoided for so long. Pain was essential, pain was a teacher, something that had to be experienced to truly learn from. And in this she hoped that they would both have learnt something.
"You helped me love myself again, you just by being you. You gave me a life with someone I love where I never had to worry. I never had that with Nathaniel, with anyone really. My first boyfriend never had any real consideration for me, he wasn't cruel to me, just indifferent. I was more of a placeholder for him, an option rather than a choice, you know? Like, if his friends called he'd rather go out with them, he'd ditch our plans to spend time with them. It didn't bother me that much though, because I had friends of my own then."
John snuggled closer, rolling onto his side so he was nestled in the crook of her arm, just like he did as a human, tucking in close to pay full attention to her. She dropped a little kiss on the top of his head in acknowledgement.
"The next was long distance, we never got much time together and had our own separate lives to lead. Nathaniel, obviously, was the worst, he undervalued me a lot, he made me feel like I wasn't just second choice but so far down his priorities that I had no meaning to him at all. But I loved him, so I made excuses for it, I dismissed it and I put up with it because I thought that was what you did in a relationship, just accepted them for who they were and made the best of it."
She didn't really want to drag it up again, but she knew that talking through everything was the only way for him to truly understand where she had come from. He lay in her arms, a warm, solid, purring ball of love and even in that form he gave her strength. She'd do it for him.
"My opinions never mattered, he made me feel stupid. He made me feel like I wasn't capable of thinking for myself. He treated my feelings like they were nothing but a hindrance, my beliefs were there to be mocked and shamed. My differences were picked apart and used as a weapon against me. He talked about my friends as if they were the enemy, trying to make me doubt them and see them as the bad guys. I know now that that was because they were making me question him and his control over me, they were a threat to his position of power in my life, so he constantly put them down, belittling them and me, to make himself look better."
John chittered softly, his whiskers tickling her skin and she smiled. She knew that he hadn't met many of her friends, life always getting in the way, but she knew he understood how much they meant to her and that he'd never tell her who she could or couldn't see.
"I tried everything to be good enough for him, but he always wanted more. He was of the belief that he was entitled to," she paused, for once wanting to put things delicately, "a certain amount of activities and it didn't matter if I did or not. He never forced me in the physical sense, but mentally he did, guilt trips and nagging was the norm for us and if I didn't give in he took that as a green light to find it elsewhere. At first it really bothered me and I'd make a special effort to offer and initiate proceedings but he accused me of only doing it when I wanted something, of using it as a weapon against him. After the first year I kinda gave up trying and I actually felt relieved that I wasn't expected to do something I didn't enjoy."
John knew Nathaniel had cheated on her, she'd said as much earlier, but it still made him angry on her behalf. He looked at his beautiful wife, the most amazing and sexy woman in the world to him and just couldn't believe that anyone would choose someone else over her.
He knew how affectionate she was, how responsive and open to love both physically and emotionally. And it was almost impossible for him to see her in any way other than how she was with him, enthusiastic, playful, fun and sensually seductive. He couldn't resist her and the thought of being with anyone else held no appeal to him.
What had that man done, or not done maybe, to get her to the point of preferring she be cheated on rather than spend time in his bed herself? He wondered if he would ever know, but didn't want to push for the information.
He could feel his anxiety slowly being replaced with anger again, anger for everything she had suffered and anger against the bastard that had done it. He flexed his paw, feeling the lingering ache of their impact with the man's nose even in this form. The memory calmed him, just a little, ridiculous though it was.
Selene shifted slightly to get more comfortable, the floor a little hard even with the padding of the pillows, although there was no way in hell she was moving just yet. Her man needed her, he needed her time, her attention and her love. There was no question that she would give him everything he needed for as long as he needed it and damn the rest of the world.
"I stopped telling people about Nathaniel, because most of them never believed me, or at least they acted like they didn't. I guess it might have been that they simply didn't know how to react to the information, like they weren't sure what to say or do for the best. It's a very British thing, to try to brush things off as if they don't matter, to act as if it's not a big deal and that you just have to get over it. I tried to warn our mutual friends and asked them to look out for his future partners, but I realise now that I was putting them in a bad position. Either they were admitting that they knew about his behaviour and had ignored it, allowing it to happen, that maybe they even agreed with it, or they felt bad that they hadn't seen it. It was easier for them to act like I was lying or blowing it up into something it wasn't. Anything but admit that they were protecting an abuser."
EOS moved closer still and Selene knew that she was listening just as closely as John was. EOS was always learning, wanting to understand the way humans worked and Selene didn't have the heart to tell her to give them some privacy. EOS was like their child, a being that they were responsible for, they were the ones that had to teach her right from wrong.
"In the end I stopped telling anyone, even new people that I met. I never gave any details, I pushed it all aside, packed up all the memories into a box in my brain and I locked them away. The more people that knew the harder it was to forget it and keep it there, so I stopped. And I liked that, I liked people treating me like I was normal, rather than some broken thing that needed special treatment and tip toeing around. I just wanted to be me, not the woman with the horrible ex. The things he put me through probably won't ever leave me completely, I see it in the way I react to things, the way I cope with certain situations, but I've learnt to accept that. That's why I never told you."
She looked down at the cat still nestled against her chest.
"I saw how it hurt you when I backed away from you and I'm sorry. I know you'd never hurt me like that, but it's a reaction I couldn't control. He'd never actually struck me before that night, that was the last straw, but he was threatening and violent in other ways. He'd throw things, both at me and around the house, put his fists through walls, kick holes in the doors, anything really. He'd push me and shove past me, knocking me into things, but always tell me it was my fault for standing in his way. He shouted a lot and for a long time I couldn't stand the sound of a raised voice, it scared me and put me right back there with him."
She cuddled the cat tighter, needing to feel him close to her, giving her strength to continue to talk.
"When you said that you did it because I'm your wife, when you shouted those words at me, I panicked. Any other time I would have shouted right back at you, because I know that you would never mean it negatively, but Nathaniel was fresh in my mind and the fear he instilled in me is still there. He used to tell me he owned me, that I was his and I would do as I was told or he'd make me sorry. You shouted, you stepped closer like he used to and my brain went into survival mode, even though I know you're different, even though I knew you would never, ever treat me that way. And I'm sorry I reacted that way, but I couldn't help it."
She looked down at the cat in her arms, wanting her husband back in his human form so badly.
"Can you please turn back? I'd really like to talk to you face to face now."
The cat meowed pitifully. He wished he could turn back, he wished it was that simple, he wished that his brain would cooperate and allow him to regain his human form, but no matter how much he tried, it just wasn't happening.
"I don't think he can," EOS said softly, breaking the silence that stretched between them.