Reflection - Chapter 4
Chapter edited 24/05/2018, just some small tweaks to make it flow a bit better.
Tundor Wastes, Grelbin.
It was very, very late, and Angela Cross was exhausted. This was the sixth time she had woken up in four hours, and this cycle was bound to continue until she had to get up for work in three hours' time. Her eyelids felt heavy and her eyes stung viciously regardless of whether they were open or not, but she couldn't sleep. She turned onto her back and stared at the blank ceiling in her bedroom, listening to the violent snow storm whistle and howl outside, and desperately wished for the sweet release of sleep.
Insomnia: a noun that had haunted Angela all year. This never used to be a problem. After Ratchet left, she felt herself feeling... empty, unsure of what to do with herself. So she drowned herself in her work at MegaCorp which worked at first. Until she found the deadlines getting tighter and tighter, the company requiring more research but giving the geneticists less time to complete it. It was stressful, even for someone as level-headed as Angela. The first project she had been assigned at MegaCorp had to be completed in a measly 2 months. She finished it in half the time, and felt as relaxed as if she were taking a first-grade math test: it was child's play. But recently, she had been given two months to finish work when realistically it would require six.
It freaked her out. The pressure in the labs was so high, she would lay awake night after night worrying about how much work she would be able to complete the following day, until her alarm started screaming to tell her it was time to get up. The work day was always a disaster, as she tripped and stumbled her way through to the evening, barely able to function, only for the cycle to be repeated as soon as her head hit her pillow. After a month of this chaos, her supervisor, who for once was being a grumpy, grey and reasonable woman in her 50s, told Angela to get it checked out. Once the verdict came through, she was given leave from work for two months. Those two months were spent experimenting with different medications, and she found one that sort of worked, every once in a while. In hindsight, it was a miracle she hadn't been fired for incompetence. Then again, her track record with the company had always been impeccable. She frequently thanked her seventeen-year-old self and her incredible aptitude, because it saved her, six years later.
She rolled onto her side, and read her clock's display: 3:31 am. She groaned as she buried her face into her pillow, and cursed into it. Only two and a half hours until the alarm was due to start beeping. Wonderful, she thought. She remained like this, listening to the screaming wind outside, the Arctic Leviathans crying out, a ship's thrusters, the Y.E.T.I.s snarling...
A ship's thrusters? Who would be out in the storm at this time? They had to have a death wish to even attempt to fly out there, unless they were an exceptionally skilled pilot. Even then they would only have a slight chance of a safe landing. They'd have a better chance of winning the lottery, Angela thought darkly.
Perhaps they were searching for moonstones? Sometimes people searched the wastes in pursuit of the precious stones. In her opinion, Angela thought those who tried to find moonstones out here were suicidal, and the risk for the lumps of rock were definitely not worth the risk. Other people disagreed, hence they came here to search. She lifted herself up from her pillow, her curly hair tumbling onto it, straining to hear what was going on outside. She could faintly make out a soft tapping on a metallic surface, then silence. She listened for a few seconds, before the tapping could be heard again, though this time it was louder. It took a few seconds more for her sleep-deprived brain to register that it was her front door, and, in a failed attempt to get up, got her feet tangled up in her sheets and plummeted to the wooden floor with a shrill yelp and a dull thud.
"Ow..." she groaned, tugging at the sheet swaddled around her legs, freeing herself. As she pulled herself to her feet, she scurried out of her bedroom, scooping up a dressing gown off the bedpost at the end of her bed as she walked. As she entered the living room, she heard another tapping at the door.
"Alright, alright," she grumbled as she wrapped the gown around herself. "Someone had better be dying, or there will be hell to pay."
Angrily, she yanked open her front door. "Yes?" she snapped impatiently, the lack of sleep severely souring her mood, before looking down. She froze, and not because of the blistering cold air that blew across her. "Ratchet?" she whispered, her eyes unable to process what they were seeing.
"Hey Ang," the Lombax said, shivering slightly, his arms wrapped around himself in a futile attempt to keep him warm. Snow had clung to his fur, chilling him further. "Can I come in? It's pretty cold out here."
Ratchet had not sat on this sofa for a very long time, and he found it oddly comforting. Angela had turned the heating on full for the night, and had found a blanket for her guest to wrap himself up in. The fact that this man was sat in her living room, on her sofa after all this time was surreal for her. She thought he had left for good, yet here he was, sat beside her, just like old times.
But not quite.
"Look Angela," he apologetically started, "I wanted to explain myself-"
"I know why you left," she interrupted, "but before you start, I have some things to say." She found herself getting progressively angrier with Ratchet, as if the dam that usually suppressed her emotions had cracked, and its structural integrity was rapidly crumbling. She stood up from her seat beside him, and started pacing - her way of releasing her anger-induced energy. "First of all," she started, "I understand your reasons for leaving, and I admire that, but you had no right to assume that I wouldn't be able to cope with being in a relationship with an intergalactic hero!" she yelled, waving an outstretched index finger in an accusatory manner. "You could have easily flown back after you cleaned everything up in Solana, and we could have carried on as normal! It was not your decision to make!"
Ratchet didn't respond, and instead looked guiltily at his feet, not daring to make eye contact with her. I could have handled it so much better, he scolded himself, knowing that he had royally screwed up...
She angrily shook her head before continuing. "And say if things hadn't gone well, and you got eaten by a Tyhrranoid, I would have been devastated." She paused for a moment to compose herself, her tone softening for a split second. This brief moment of bliss was quickly interrupted by the female lombax launching straight back into her rant. "But I wouldn't be thinking, oh, I don't know... that asshole just picked up his stuff and left me!" she snapped, furiously scowling at Ratchet. "Secondly, you had no right to just show up here, in the middle of the night, considering you abandoned me without even saying goodbye!" she continued yelling, getting more and more animated. "Have you ever heard of calling ahead? We haven't even seen each other in a year!" She felt hot tears run down her face, and collapsed on the sofa in resignation. "It took me months to get over you," she whispered, her voice cracking as she brushed a lock of hair out of her face. "It took months of tears, heartache and distractions to forget how much I loved you, and now-" she looked over at Ratchet, who still didn't dare look at the woman, "-now I'm not so sure whether I truly did get over you."
Ratchet gazed up, his eyes glistening with tears. "Going back to Solana was the hardest thing I've ever had to do," he said softly, his voice cracking. Crying was something Angela had never seen him do, and she wasn't sure how to react. She wanted to comfort him, but she also wanted to strangle him. Maybe it's best if I keep my distance...
He sniffed slightly before continuing. "Fighting six hundred Protopets would have been easier than leaving you. Fighting six hundred mutant Protopets would have been easier." He reached over, shrugged the blanket off of his wiry frame, and gently clasped Angela's hand with both of his, but she didn't react, acting indifferent to what was happening. "If I could have done it differently, I would have."
Angela shook her head sadly, looking blankly at the floor in front of her. "But you didn't do it differently. You left and it messed me up, that's what happened."
"I never stopped loving you Ang, and you know that," he persisted. "Recently, I've found that I haven't been able to stop thinking about you, and all the time we spent together. I want all of that back. It can be just like before, I promise." He watched for her reaction, to find there was none. She wasn't the person to believe in empty promises, nor was she one to trust people who broke her heart. "I won't go this time," he whispered, only to notice Angela's expression grow sadder, as if she was reliving that dreadful evening all over again.
She looked at Ratchet, and said, slowly, "Trying to get over you and move on with my life was the single most painful experience of my entire life. You say you won't go, but somehow I know you mean it. You're not a bad guy Ratchet, far from it. But if it doesn't work out, I can't put myself through all of that pain again." She ran a finger and thumb back and forth across her distinct jawline: a sign Ratchet learned to mean she was indecisive.
Ratchet squeezed her hand reassuringly. "Angela, it'll be different."
Her eyes glassed over for a split second, before filling up with tears. "I can't do it," she said as she pulled her hands away from Ratchet and placed them in her lap. "Not again. I'm sorry, Ratchet." She buried her face in her hands and began to cry harder, her sobs shattering Ratchet's heart in two.
"No, I'm sorry," he insisted, "I shouldn't have left." He sighed before speaking again. "I let you down Ang, and I don't deserve a second chance. I'm surprised you didn't rip my head off as soon as you saw me." He let off a small chuckle and awkwardly rubbed the back of his head, causing Angela to look up at the chiseled face, the strong build, and the swoon-inducing eyes, the man she was still very much in love with. She hadn't got over him and it pained her to realise the fact.
"Believe me, I had considered it," she replied weakly. "But I somehow managed to forgive you ages ago. Don't ask me how, but I found a way." She wiped the tears from her face, only to find Ratchet taking over.
"I didn't expect you to," Ratchet replied, using his thumb to gently brush away the moist tracks Angela's tears had made on her face. Upon registering the touch of his thumb, she tensed, prepared to recoil, but slowly started to relax. Physical contact from Ratchet felt familiar, and it made her feel warm and fuzzy inside. Once he had finished wiping away the tears, he sank back into the sofa, unsure of what to do with himself. He could sense it in the air how physically strained things felt. Wondering how to ease the tension, he thought a funny anecdote would be an effective way of diffusing things.
"Remember that time when you tripped in a restaurant and snagged a dining couple's table cloth?" Ratchet said, a smile creeping on his face at the thought of the memory.
Angela shuddered and said, "Don't remind me, that was mortifying." She brushed the hair from her face, which always seemed to be getting in the way. "That was our first date."
"Yeah."
Silence filled the room as the two Lombaxes were unsure of what to say to each other. The pair used to love each other passionately and fully; now they were strangers with history. The snow storm outside had died down considerably, its howl no longer resonating within the house.
"You said you never stopped loving me," Angela enquired, desiring to ascertain how truthful that statement was.
"Not for a single day," Ratchet replied, with a hint of sadness to his voice. "As each day passed, I resented myself more and more. We had so many plans, and I ruined them," he said with an angry growl to his voice.
"Sometimes things just aren't meant to be," Angela said in an attempt to console him. "I realised that a long time ago."
Ratchet started shaking his head, clearly frustrated with himself. "I was going to ask you to marry me!" he cried, tears pouring down his face. "Going back to Solana was not a decision I took lightly! Once I defeated Dr Nefarious, it tore me up. It ate away at me for months! The only time I was able to forget about it was when I was fighting for my life on intergalactic HoloVision!"
"I had no idea..." Angela whispered, holding a hand up to her mouth in disbelief. Not only was this man crying in front of her for the very first time, he wanted to marry her...
"I'll admit now that shortly after I took out Nefarious, I got into a relationship with a woman who was the captain of the starship fleet I was assigned to," he continued, waiting for Angela to slap him for finding another partner so quickly. Angela was never physical with him, but when she seldom got angry, she was certainly a force to be reckoned with, and avoided like the plague. No slap came, so he resumed his story. "Because her father is the Galactic President, she got into politics, so I was made captain of her old ship while she worked on her campaign. Once she was elected Mayor of Metropolis, we barely saw each other. It hurt us both, so we decided to break off the relationship, we ended on good terms. But even being with her didn't make the pain go away, nothing did. It made me forget most of the time, but when I thought of you, it felt like I had rubbed lemon juice into a papercut which was on my eye. It was without a doubt the worst thing I've ever felt."
Angela was still staring at him, struggling to process the revelation that he wanted to marry her once. "You were going to propose?" she asked softly.
Ratchet nodded meekly. "I have a ring and everything."
Angela shot a suspicious look at Ratchet. "Have?" she questioned.
"I keep it with me all the time," he confessed. "It's a reminder of how much I messed up, and how I'd never do anything like that again."
"What about now? Do you have it with you?"
"That depends on two things."
"And they are?" she asked.
"Whether you'll give me a second chance, and whether you want us to start a new relationship, or if you want to pick up where we left off."
Angela didn't know what to say. She looked at him, annoyed that he had just showed up in the middle of the night without hearing anything from him for a year. The nerve of it! Half of her wanted to chase him out of her house for good, and the rest of her wanted to throw herself into his arms. She loved Ratchet, and had never felt this way about anyone else before or after. She remembered that once she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, and was convinced it was going to happen.
But then he left, her brain told herself, and he hurt you badly.
She hadn't forgotten, but he had flown all this way to apologise and makes things right. Surely a gesture as grand as this showed her how much she meant to him? Crossing an entire galaxy at night to be with someone was a grand gesture, right? Of course it was. She could now see how exhausted Ratchet was after his journey, noticing bags under his eyes for the first time. He had undergone a lot of physical endurance just to get here, the least she could do was be appreciative of it. Besides, even when they were dating he had always been so sweet and considerate towards her. He was her protector, and he cherished her. She was hopelessly in love with Ratchet, and he loved her just as much; she could see he still did. She could tell just from the way he looked at her with an expression filled with pure adoration.
Surely she could forgive him for one mistake? A mistake that was made a long time ago now.
Could she?
"I don't know," she mustered, running her fingers through her hair, "I don't know what to make of all this."
"I just want to make you happy Ang," Ratchet said, easing her hands away from her hair. She always ran her hands through her hair when she was stressed. "I will do anything to make it up to you, it's your call."
Angela's mind was racing. She was in control of what was going to happen. For once the fate of this relationship was in her hands, and she didn't know what to do with it.
