AN: Only two more chapters left to go for this fic!

Chapter 9

Stop, Rewind

Time was playing tricks. The hands that progressed slowly forwards seemed to overlap with others from other points in time, to moments that seemed the same. For the second time Helia found himself indebted to Icy. He had never witnessed a magic that powerful, strong or beautiful but it was not only the frozen crystals that had him so mesmerised. The woman behind it all, with hair as white as snow and eyes as blue as the ocean, had earned Helia's trust and adoration. She had single-handedly saved them from the Shard…yet again.

Helia inadequate, as if he was an injured bird that could not fly and needed others to assist him as every turn. Whenever they fell into trouble it was Icy that saved his life, rarely the other way around. His powers were limited, his training and skill not enough to cope with their current predicament. Sitting amongst the stones while Icy rested beside him, Helia found himself staring at a single flower before him. It's light pink petals standing out amongst the green forest roots, almost as if it was defying the odds. Helia wondered if they would end up like that flower, defying the odds, or the other green and mundane leaves that surrounded it, who have given up the fight.

"What are you thinking about?" A soft voice asked as Icy sat next to Helia, his shoulders low and head looking to the ground below.

"I'm not sure what to think," he replied honestly. "I'm not sure how much longer I can do this…running in a circle." He rotated his index finger as he spoke the final words adding emphasis to the never ending nature of it all.

"I find it easier if you think of the present," Icy answered. "Thinking of the future is miserable. Thinking of the past is too hard to face." His head nodded in agreement and silence soon filled the space between them once more.

"You saved me."

Icy looked to Helia though his gaze did not meet hers in return. Gently she placed a hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze which made him turn.

"We saved each other," she smiled. "You helped to get me out of a sticky situation."

"I'm more of a burden than a help." He looked away.

Two of Icy's cold fingers touched Helia's chin, moving it back towards her. He pulled away and stood to his feet. Slowly he started trudging back through the bushes when Icy took a hold of his hand to stop him moving any further. "Helia, you need to stop beating yourself up about things. You did a great job considering the circumstances."

"But it still wasn't enough to get us both out of danger," he replied, turning around to face her. For a moment he smiled before shaking his head. "What is wrong with me?"

"Nothing!"

"it's not nothing! If I can't protect the people I love then what use am I?"

"You are a good man, someone who does protect the people that you love." Icy reasoned.

"Not well enough."

"You need to learn how to forgive yourself for things that are out of your control. What happened to Flora was not your fault. You did everything that you could have!"

Helia pivoted on his heel. "How would you know?!"

"Because I was there!" Icy snapped, eyes filling with tears and Helia's filling with confusion.

"You…" he paused, an obvious quiver in his voice. "You were what?" Icy took a few deep breaths, feeling a heavy burden and weight lift from her shoulders but another one penetrate into her heart like the shards she so accurately inflicted to cut away lives.

"I was there," she answered softly.

"Y-You…"

"I wanted to tell you but…but I couldn't find the right time."

"So you saw everything." Helia's eyes lifted to meet hers, the well of salty tears slowly filling as a mixture of betrayal and hatred rose from his core. "You saw everything and still have the nerve to tell me that it wasn't my fault that she died! If you were there why didn't you help?!"

"I…"

"Is this another one of your tricks Icy because I'm seriously not ready to play along right now."

"It's not a trick!"

"Then what the hell were you…"

"I killed my sisters!"

Helia's rant stopped and he froze like a statue, his eyes unblinking and mind swirling as Icy bit her bottom lip to try and gain some composure though found herself struggling to stop the tears that escaped and slid down her cheeks. "I…" she paused, blinking a few times to make her vision clear. "We were hiding inside an abandoned castle on Whisperia…when The Shard attacked. We ran but had made a pact that if anyone of us was ever taken, that I would…" her voice trailed off, and suddenly the reasons for Icy's stubbornness to remove him from the situation became more and more clear. "They were both trapped and I…I ran through the forest away from them but this tracking beast found me. It had me cornered in a cave and I…I panicked and I used my time travelling magic to transport me to a different location in time."

"Linphea," Helia sighed and Icy nodded before inhaling a deep breath into her lungs.

"I ran through the portal and the invisibility magic masked my body… along the way I bumped into something but I was so focused on getting away that I didn't think about it. But, when I looked back, I saw the beast reach through with its claws and swipe the air just before it closed and it disappeared… and instead of killing me-"

"It killed Flora."

Silence hung in the air, tension slowly built between the two in a way they had never experienced before. Neither knew what to say or what to do, and Helia used all his strength and focus on trying to stop his body from running forwards and smashing the ice witch into the nearest tree with all his might. His mind was so overrun with emotions and conflicting thoughts that he had no idea what to think, where to look, what to do. His legs and arms all refused to move and yet craved the sensation of running in any direction and not looking back, of never looking back.

Icy was a mysterious woman, Helia knew that much, yet he had embraced her for who she was and had grown to love her in a way he hadn't felt with anyone else for a long time. But now all of that time, all of those moments, all of their connection, was smashed into pieces that lay in ruins with the dirt under his shoes. They had both come so far, survived so much, been to hell and back and had saved each other's lives on more than one occasion. And now Helia didn't know what to do. He could see the pain written inside Icy's eyes but the pain in his own heart made him apathetic to her plea, to the cries that escaped her throat every now and then or the tears leaking down her face.

"This whole time…this whole time you knew the truth and you didn't tell me."

"There was never a good time to," Icy explained pitifully as Helia walked past her, hands on his hips. "Helia, I'm sorry."

His hand extended to stop her from reaching him. Her hands tried to grip his fingers but he pulled it away. "It's too late to apologise," he replied, eyes lacking any form of friendship or light as he turned and marched away into the night. "Helia! P-Please… I'm s-s-sorry…come back."

"This was all your fault!" He stopped, looking over his shoulder. "I said that if I ever found out what was responsible for her death, that I'd kill it."

"Then do it," Icy sighed, "I deserve it for what I've done…I deserve it for ruining your happiness, for destroying your life."

"No you don't." His voice was dejected, was quiet, soulful, lacked any form of intention and Icy then knew what kind of man Helia truly was. He would never hurt her, he would never bring her to harm on purpose or even for his own gain. He was pure, selfless, a man who loved to the end of eternity and who, even when confronted with the purpose of his loves loss, would never bring that sorrow onto anyone, even if Icy had no one mourning over her death.

His shadow disappeared into the forest and Icy didn't call his name another time. He had made his choice, had granted her freedom, now she needed to take it.

Pivoting on her heel she slowly made her way through the woods, wiping the tear tracks from her eyes though finding more following each one. She was alone now, alone with no one else in the world at her side. Her feet stopped and she leant against a nearby tree before sliding to the earth and pulling her knees to her chest, her face buried into her arms as tears slid slowly down her cheeks. Her shoulders quivered and lungs shook as darkness encroached closer and closer, even darker and scarier now than it had ever been before.

Helia marched away, fists clenched, jaw rigid and tears rolling silently down his cheeks. His foot stumbled against a rock sending him face first to the earth with a bang but he made no effort to get up. His hands clenched the leaves into tight bundles as his shoulders sobbed. The entire time he had been saving the woman who killed Flora, had protected and even loved her. He felt sick to the very stomach, he had betrayed her memory on a whole new and unspeakable level, he had done the one thing he had vowed to never do again, he had tried to do the right thing…the moral thing, and instead it had ruined his life in more ways than one. He had beaten himself up for days about Flora's death, had refused to let anyone in to help and the one person that he had let in was the one person who was responsible for his misery and heartache in the first place.

Pushing himself up by his hands he leant backwards and sat, one elbow resting on his knee and his hand supporting his head. "I'm sorry," his broken voice whispered into the night. "Flora, I'm so sorry."

BANG!

Something heavy collided with Helia's skull, making him fall into an unconscious heap. Dark shadows surrounded him, their smiles practically glowing in the dark moonlight. "One down, one to go."

AN: Thanks for reading and please review.