He is learning to edit his memory. It is a painful process because it requires that he focus only on the bad times, the times when Medusa was cruel, scornful, when she robbed him of sanity and choice and anything she couldn't control. Those times certainly existed. But just as certainly, there had been moments when some strange peace had infiltrated both of them at once and they'd indulged, if only for a few seconds, in the delusion that they loved each other.
The first time he saw her naked. She shed her clothes and then stood before him and let his eyes travel over her—up over her lean legs, the dark untamed hair between them, the light definition of her abdomen muscles that spoke to her agility and strength, the simple but unabashed curve of her breasts. The sight of her body awoke a mad animal lust that made his head spin; and yet beneath that, even the quiet, desperate voice of his sanity was momentarily awed into silence at the perfection of the specimen he beheld. When his eyes returned to her face, she smiled lazily, knowing his every thought.
The time he matched his wavelength to hers, on impulse—more to see if he could than any other reason. She shivered at the sudden, unfamiliar intimacy and turned a sharp glare towards him. But he could feel wonder in her soul, and pleasure. He cracked a smile at her. And in a moment, she grew used to the sensation and she, too, slipped into a nervous smile. Never before had he felt so at home with someone else's soul.
The time he'd found her slumped over her work in a light doze, her breath peaceful, an empty test tube dangling precariously from her fingers. It had taken him a moment to identify the strange emotion that the sight prompted in him. But when he did, he slipped the test tube from her grasp and placed it into the rack in front of her and then smirked, half-mocking himself.
"I pity you," he said under his breath to the woman who had dragged him to his own willing ruin. His voice was not without affection. "Because you've made the mistake of caring. I could be broken by anyone with enough of your traits, but you're in the oh-so-awkward position of really caring about me."
He is trying to forget all of these things. It does him no good to remember.
During the day, when Marie is gone and Medusa is whispering into his mind like a wicked lover, he sometimes has to bite his tongue and pray that she can't read his thoughts because the question is clawing at his throat and beating on the inside of his skull: was any of that sincere? Even knowing that her answer would be coy (he can almost hear her say come back to me and find out), it is hard to swallow his curiosity. Even knowing that her answer could drag him back to the hell she'd built for him. Sometimes he thinks he wouldn't mind being dragged back if it would mean living under her gaze again, where a single flick of her eyes could still the screaming inside him or make it consume him. Where he was allowed to feel his own power without fearing himself.
He has to forget these things.
He has to forget what happened when his voice—a mere whisper though it had been—had woken her, and she'd caught his arm before he could turn away. Her eyes were still heavy with sleep, but they were amused and certain. "Why should I be pitied?" she had asked. Her voice was as soft as his, but instead of his dry sarcasm it was warm and rich and welcoming. "I have what I want."
Someday, maybe, when he's got his head on straight again, he'll be allowed to remember that and shudder at the thought of her ownership. For now, it's just one more memory to be edited away.