"I'm sorry" she repeated again and again as she held tightly to the lion king. The memories of her night-terror were still crystal clear in her mind. She was doing her best to calm herself down, but nothing seemed to be working. After a few minutes of deep breathing and more than a few comforting words from Lion-O, she finally released him and began to look around.

"Where is everybody?" she asked, noticing for the first time that they were the only two cats in the camp.

"Well…Panthero went to scout a safe place for the thundertank to cross the river. Tygra is trying to hunt up something to add to our diminishing food supply and the Wily-cubs are down by the river getting some fresh water for the camp." Lion-O replied. "And I just came back from getting us some more firewood."

"Why didn't someone wake me?" Cheetara inquired a little uneasily.

"We all felt that you needed a little extra sleep. Especially after last night's incident."

Cheetara felt her cheeks flush red with embarrassment as she looked down towards her bedroll. "I see… I didn't realize that I was that bad." She mumbled, barely loud enough for Lion-O to hear.

"You're not." Lion-O replied as he leaned back to sit on the ground by her feet. Now seemed like a good time to put a little bit of needed space between them. "We just figured that since we weren't packing up today, and nothing seemed pressing, then why no let you have a little extra time to rest."

"Oh," she said softly, as she started to fidget with her hands. Cheetara suddenly had no idea what to do with herself. She desperately wanted to talk to Lion-O about her dreams, but she was both nervous and embarrassed at the thought of it. She didn't know where or how to begin such a conversation. She realizes now that she has been severely lacking in her duties to her king. More troubling than that, she realizes, is that she had been hurting her friend. Most troublesome of all though, was her lack of convictions as a cleric. She had ignored all of her life-long teachings and everything she has trained so long and so hard for. She had set aside her opinions and her own personal beliefs, just to appear supportive to her mate. She had never imagined she would lose herself so thoroughly to another cat, she never would have thought it possible, but it had happened. The shame of that fact alone was weighing down on her almost more than she could bear.

"Cheetara, what is wrong?" Lion-O asked as he watched her carefully. He had seen the way she was fidgeting around, and noticed that she would not look in his direction. She was definitely worried about something, and it probably had to do with her dreams, but what exactly it was, he couldn't guess.

"Nothing is wrong. I just-" Cheetara's reply was cut short by Lion-O as he reached over and placed his hand on hers. This action made her look up at him.

"Cheetara…" He interrupted her, "We both know that is NOT the case." His concern for her was clearly shown on his face. "So why don't you stop hiding whatever it is that you are hiding, and tell me what's really going on. And while you're at it, you can tell me what part I have in all of this."

"What makes you think you have anything to do with this?" she asked a little defiantly. She hated the fact that he could always seem to see through her. He was always so in tuned with her. It was like he could actually see into her soul and read her emotions like a book, and that annoyed her…a little.

"Well…" he began, as the smirk on his face grew wider. "You have been having these Night-terrors for weeks now. Recently, they have been getting more frequent and worse in their intensity because you usually wake up screaming, you're covered in sweat and you're unable to catch your breath. Earlier this morning, after you woke up screaming, you were looking around the camp as if searching for something. When you finally saw me, you stared at me as if you were seeing a ghost. And just a few minutes ago, after you woke up crying, you held onto me like you were trying to squeeze the life out of me yourself! All the time telling me how 'Sorry' you were… Now I might not be the smartest cat in this group, but I can put two and two together and get something close to four. So again, I'm going to ask you…What is wrong?"

Cheetara's cheeks flushed scarlet as she listened to Lion-O's rather obvious explanation. The tears welled up in her eyes and she desperately tried to hold them back. She thought about her behavior over the last several months and she was appalled. Her latest night-terror was still fixed vividly in her mind, and using that as a guide, she could see clearly all of the mistakes she had made. As she mentally examined each one, and there were quite a few, she came to an alarming revelation. She had hurt them, she had hurt them all; and with that new understanding, the tears fell freely of their own accord. She finally saw how much harm had been done by both her actions and her failures to act. She finally understood that a large portion of the tension and discomfort that the group had been feeling lately was because of her. Cheetara had never considered herself to be a thoughtless cat, but when she realized exactly how much pain and anguish she had inadvertently caused to Lion-O, and for that matter the rest of the thundercats, it was a wonder that they didn't call her cruel. She was quickly brought out of her contemplations by the sound of Lion-O calling her name.

"Cheetara" Lion-O called with concern in his voice. He had been waiting patiently on a response to his question, but then he noticed that although Cheetara had been looking at him, she seemed to have been staring off at something, as if lost in thought. Then the tears came. The pained look on her face was almost too much for him to bear. She seemed to be tormented by whatever it was that she was seeing. "Cheetara…" he called again. He finally relaxed a little when she blinked her eyes for a moment and then looked directly at him again. "Are you okay? You seemed to really zone-out there for a minute."

"Um...No...Actually I'm not." She replied softly as she looked down to her coverings again and began to wipe away the tears that were running down her face. She took a few deep breaths to help her get her chaotic thoughts and emotions back under control. Once she had calmed herself and steeled her resolve, she lifted her eyes to meet Lion-O's gaze. What she saw there surprised her. There in his deep azure eyes, was a look of concern. It was etched all over his features. After all the hurt she had caused him, and she knows that she has hurt him the worst, he was still worried about her. That realization sent a jolt of pain searing through her as if she had just been stabbed in the heart. She felt her own guilt press down on her like a mountain, but she needed to get through this. She needed to tell him, and she needed to finally admit it out loud. "I am Sorry Lion-O…I have failed you… I have failed you, and I have failed them, and I have failed Jaga…" That newest thought, the one of failing Jaga after all the sacrifices he had made for them, that just added to her misery. "And I have failed myself….I have failed as a Cleric, I have failed as a companion, and I have failed as a friend…. I have made so many mistakes…I have betrayed you, and I have hurt you. I have hurt you so much… and because of my own stupidity… you… and maybe all of us… could have died…And I don't know what, if anything, I can do to fix it." She had maintained eye contact with Lion-O the entire time she was speaking, but once she was done, she hung her head in shame. The tears that she had been previously holding back now came rushing out against her will as she sobbed quietly. The truth of her words had hurt her, it had hurt deeply, but he deserved the truth.

"Cheetara…" he began, but then he suddenly stopped. He didn't know how he was going to respond to her. This wasn't what he was expecting to hear. Truthfully, He had been hurt by her; and if he was completely honest, he had felt betrayed by her. But those feelings were on a personal level. He had never thought of her as a failure, especially not as a cleric. She had made some mistakes, that was true; But then again, so had he, and a lot of them. As he sat there pondering on this thought, he examined the cheetah before him. He really looked at her from head to toe. He realized this was NOT the same self-assured warrior he was used to seeing. Gone were her confidence and her fearlessness. Gone was her attitude that she could overcome anything. Instead, he was looking at a woman that was unsure of herself. She may have been afraid, which was something new to see on her, but she was determined to follow this thing through no matter what happens. Most of all, he was seeing his friend sitting and crying in front of him. She had apologized to him for the mistakes that she had made and for the pain she had caused him, and she was waiting for his response. At that moment, his heart was filled with compassion for her. He wasn't sure what they were going to do, or how long it would take, but somehow he knew that they would work things out.

"Hey Lion-O" he heard from behind him. He turned to see the Thunder-kittens coming up the trail on the far side of the camp, and he waved at them to indicate he had heard them. As he watched them coming he saw the outline of Panthero come into view some distance behind them.

Lion-O turned back to Cheetara and looked at her with a smile. "You may want to go and clean yourself up. I doubt you'd want anyone else to know that you've been crying." He stood before her and started to brush himself off. "Why don't you take some time for yourself too? Maybe meditate or something. You haven't done that in a while. I promise that I will find you later and then we can finish this without everyone being present, okay?"

Cheetara nodded her consent and quickly turned back to her bedroll. She started to gather up a few things that she knew she would need. She wanted desperately to go down by the river and wash her face. After that, she would find a place where she could be alone for a while. She needed to really examine the things she had learned today. She wanted to look at not only her actions, but what she was thinking when she did them. She needed to identify not only the 'what', but the 'why' to the choices she had made. That was the only way she could think of to make sure that she didn't make the same mistakes again. As she exited the camp and started walking to wards the river, she thought again of the look of concern she had seen on Lion-O's face. She did not know if he would ever forgive her for all of the pain she had caused him. She didn't know if there was any way to make it up to him, or if there was any way to fix things, but she swore by the ancients, and all that was sacred, she was going to try. That is, if he let her...