Author's Note: Sorry about the delay guys, I owed you an update way sooner.
There is some pseudo-science in this chapter; I tried to have it make sense but please bear with me if it doesn't.
Admiral's Quarters, Hyperion (music - Mega Man Zero Idea: X, The Legend)
Jim playfully tackled the clone onto the bed, tugging at the straps of her dress. His fingers froze as he found something unusual.
In the split second of hesitation she whipped her knife out and slashed the hand that had found the knife off. The pain hadn't even registered to Jim before she'd flipped them over and plunged the blade down.
Miraculously, the pain was enough to shake the clone's hold on his mind, and the poison hadn't fazed Jim much. At least, not enough for him to be able to see the blade that he was holding at bay inches from his face. Mustering his strength, he pushed the clone off of him so they were on even footing.
"Why...Sarah?" He couldn't be sure which one, but his fevered brain seemed to think it was the redhead.
"If I can't have you, nobody can have you!" the clone screamed, barely managing to keep the satisfaction from ruining her act as she allowed Jim's one-handed grip on her knife arm to prevail, pushing her against a dresser. The poison was altering his senses just as she'd hoped it would.
The struggle lasted a few more tense seconds before the real Sarah burst into the room. Jim, distracted by the new presence and weakening from the poison coursing through his body, let his grip slacken.
The clone suddenly grabbed him and slammed him against the wall, plunging the knife into his back up to the hilt.
"JIM!" Sarah ran to him in a panic, but the clone stopped her.
"Move another step and I pull the knife out." Sarah knew enough about knife wounds to know that doing so would likely kill him.
Behind her, two marines filled the doorway, with Horner standing behind them. "The same goes for all of you!" the clone snapped, twitching the knife hilt slightly to prove her point. "Drop them!"
She didn't give the marines a chance to comply before ripping their rifles from their grip, taking fingers, mechanical and human, in the process. Both marines fell to the ground, screaming in pain and bleeding heavily. Matt's hand froze an inch above his holstered sidearm and he clenched his jaw to suppress the sudden bout of nausea.
There was a sudden glint and the hilt separated from the blade of the knife. In one fluid motion, the Spectre brought his leg up for a kick, striking the clone on the side of the head. She fell to the ground and the two psionics began wrestling for the Spectre's blade.
Sarah took the opportunity to grab Jim's lifeless body and hoist him over her shoulder. "Dammit Jim, don't die on me!"
A contingent of marines parted to make way for her as she stumbled as fast as she could to the medbay, with Horner running to catch up.
Behind her, the clone had killed the Spectre and had now grabbed a marine with her mind. The confused soldier felt his suit acting against his will and the rifle buck in his arm without his finger squeezing the trigger. As his surprised comrades fired on the clone while their hijacked comrade cut them down, she melted into the shadows of the dimly-lit admiral's quarters, the glow of her eyes hanging in the air for a split second longer.
She re-appeared behind them and slammed her hand into the ground, summoning a myriad of psionic energy columns from the floor. They were dead before they knew what hit them, the brainwashed marine among them. Two firebats that had been waiting in ambush at one end of the corridor broke and ran at the sight, but they stopped and grabbed their helmets as the clone invaded their minds. The hapless soldiers' heads exploded inside their suits, leaving their suits frozen in running position like statues. The clone's pace didn't slow for a second as she made her way to the hangar and the shuttle she'd piloted to the ship.
When she reached the hanger, Swann was waiting, along with a small army that would have stopped even the most skilled Ghost in their tracks. "You killed my friends, you bitch! I'm not going to let you pass!"
The clone wordlessly cloaked and snuck past them. Once she was behind the force she slammed her hand into the ground again. Combat armors were charred like paper, Hellbats exploded in massive conflagrations of napalm, Vultures disappeared in a bright explosion as their Spider Mines combusted, and Spectres screamed and clutched their heads in a vain attempt to stop them from frying. By some miracle, the hull of the Hyperion wasn't breached and a surprisingly large number of men had survived. The ones that weren't fortunate enough to were mostly vehicle drivers.
The clone took a moment to survey the carnage she'd unleashed with a smile. "Now you know the power of who you oppose. For all your determination and grit has gotten you thus far, do not expect any more of the same result. You cause is doomed to die, just or not."
"Not...so long as...we believe in it," groaned Swann. He grabbed her leg with his left arm and brought the pincers together as hard as he could.
"No more games." A red psi-blade emerged from her arm and she sliced Swann's claw off with ease. "You believe so fervently in your unwavering will; let's see if it will help you endure this!" She cast her hands out, aiming for the wall of the hangar. After taking a few moments to focus her powers, she raised her arms before slamming them down and the ship heaved violently. The outer pressure hull ruptured and the cleavage grew steadily wider.
"That does it...!" Swann clumsily swung the metal stump of his left arm, knocking the clone over. "First you kill my friends, now you break my ship!" He slammed her with his ruined arm again. "How do you like that, bitch?"
"I've wasted enough time on all of you," the clone seethed, casually pushing Swann away. "I'd love to stay and play, but I'm afraid I have other matters to attend to."
Without giving a second thought to the dozens of men and women she had just doomed to death by suffocation, the clone shut the ramp to her shuttle and carefully piloted it out of the ruined hangar, ignoring the sporadic fire from the Hyperion's batteries. With a blinding blue flash, it was gone.
Sarah sat nervously on a chair inside the medbay, wiping her damp palms on her suit. Though the doctors had appreciated her efforts, they had refused to allow her into the emergency room.
"If Jim dies, I'll never forgive myself..."
After a few moments a doctor entered. "He's in critical condition. Said he wanted to see you." Sarah leaped up and sprinted into the room.
"Jim!" she cried upon seeing the blood surrounding him. The doctor put a hand on her shoulder.
"It's worse than it looks. We've removed the knife blade safely, but the posion's counteracting our regeneration drugs." Sarah ignored him and ran to Jim's side, wrapping one hand around his neck and unintentionally touching the gaping wound.
Immediately, her hand throbbed painfully and Sarah jerked her hand back in surprise. She looked at her hand in shock; it was now an angry red and blistering, what's more, her hand was regenerating very slowly if at all. She noticed a steadily widening circle of blackened flesh centering around the wound.
"If it can do this to me, it's a miracle Jim's still alive...!" She began to focus her powers, trying to draw the poison out of his blood. It worked, but a small, pronounced plume of green fumes rose from Jim's wound. The compound had been heated sufficiently by Jim's blood to transform into its gaseous form.
"Oh no! What have I done?" Without thinking, Sarah pushed her face against the wound, forcing herself to inhale every last ounce of the toxin. With each breath her lungs burned and pain flared in dozens of different areas of her body, but she ignored it until she was sure that any remaining poison wouldn't be fatal. With last of her strength, she channeled her powers into regenerating the worst of the necrotic tissue around the knife wound.
The Hyperion's doctors stared in a mixture of shock and amazement. Sarah's lips opened to form a "you're welcome" but her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she passed out without saying a word.
Decompression alarms suddenly rang out across the ship and the sound of rending metal was heard.
On the bridge, Matt was the first to recover. "Seal all blast doors. How bad is it, Marcus?" He tried to keep his tone calm and was amazed that he succeeded.
"Blast doors are not responding. The outer pressure hull is the only thing holding the ship together - "
"She's getting away!" the weapons officer announced. Before Horner could give the command to fire the shuttle warp jumped.
There was a collective outburst of cursing and pounding of machinery. "Never mind her; we tried our best," Matt consoled. "Right now we need to focus on fixing this ship before we suffocate."
"Sir, the only way we can do that is with space suits, and those are in engineering..." Matt cursed. Cade was right, and the engine room was in the other half of the ship, along with life support, the adjutant, repair equipment, and about everything else besides gravity accelerators. Emergency space suits were in the escape pod bay, but that was probably de-pressurized already...
Horner shook the pessimism from his head. They had survived a face-first dive into hell; they were not dying like this. "There should be a backup LS and a manual override for the doors."
"I did what I could, sir, but the local override only seals the compartment where the override is issued. The remainder's already fully depressurized, and without sealing parts of the ship off to space the backup life support can't refill the atmosphere in the slightest. I powered it off because there's a limited supply of air."
Matt nodded. As counter-intuitive to basic human instinct as it was, Cade had taken the right course of action. "Then all that's left for us to do...is wait."
(music - your choice)
"Ugh..." Jim groaned as he returned to consciousness. He was immediately aware that something was wrong.
"Sir, you need to rest," one of the doctors instructed, but the commander brushed himself off and sat up.
"What's going on? Where's everyone else?"
"The area outside the medbay is decompressed, sir. You can't go anywhere without a space suit."
"My CMC will be enough." Jim started for the door.
"Sir, it's not safe! And..." the doctor paused. "...I think you'll want to thank her for saving you."
Jim froze as he processed the redhead lying on the bed next to his. "Why? She tried to kill me out of jealousy."
There were a series of nervous glances, but Jim took no notice as he spoke into his communicator. "Swann, got anyone who can spare a moment to drop my suit off at the medbay?" He looked back to the assembled doctors. "I'll be back once I'm assured that we're safe; is that okay?"
None of them were willing to argue, but the chief doctor nodded. "We need to review his brain for damage more thoroughly once he returns," he muttered to his colleagues once Jim had left the room. "Also, psi-screens on and get Kerrigan a psi-dampener. Don't let her hear anything of this, but we may need her powers so don't suppress them with medicine."
A few minutes later Jim was inside his black armor. Grateful for the emergency air supply, he sealed the visor and set off for the armory. He knew it was dangerous to his still-weakened body, but in truth he was walking around to avoid the woman who'd nearly killed him as much as possible. He stopped and frowned as his suit brought up atmosphere readings.
Maybe the doctors didn't know the full situation, but the fact that they were lying was irritating to him nonetheless. Jim sighed and stepped out of his combat armor as soon as he entered the armory.
"How's repairs, Swann?"
"Rough. The ship was split in half between compartments 5 and 6. Everything but the lower pressure hull was ripped apart. We were literally hanging by a thread, and we still are since our first priority was fixing the life support so everyone in the forward half of the ship won't suffocate."
"Do we have enough resources to patch the hull?"
"Enough to make it safe to warp jump. Might have to break down some of the damaged and older equipment for scrap, but we've got plenty courtesy of the fights you've been picking." "...and of your girlfriend's fake," he added bitterly in his mind.
A doctor walked in behind Jim. "Sir, you are confined to the medbay per Captain Horner's orders." On cue, Jim's suit communicator beeped.
"What's up, Matt?"
"Sir, I know you're worried about our well-being, but you need to stay in the medbay until you're cleared! That knife had some potent poison on it, and it's a miracle you survived at all!"
Jim wasn't quite sure why, but his second's words were rubbing him the wrong way. "I'm in charge here, Matt. Things are done my way if I so chose."
"Listen to yourself! You sound just like Mengsk!"
The armory went silent. Jim blinked, ignoring the stares of his crew. What was he thinking? His assailant would be in the same room as him if he went back, but if she was in the medbay odds were she wasn't in much shape to try again, and there were dozens of medical staff on hand to stop her anyhow. He'd have some precautions taken to ensure she couldn't attack him again. It wasn't a reason to avoid the medbay, especially if his crew was worried sick about his own well-being.
"Alright, but I want to know what happened. Give me a second to transfer you to the handheld."
"Don't let her see him," ordered the chief doctor as Jim entered, still listening to Matt's report. "Not until after we run this test."
Right on cue, Sarah opened her eyes and groaned weakly. A nurse quickly drew the curtains around her bed.
"Alright, doc, what's going on?" Jim asked as he walked over.
"The poison contains a highly advanced toxin that is designed to specifically damage but not destroy neurons in the brain, that is, perpetrate memory alteration or loss. We need to scan you to ensure that your brain has not suffered permanent damage. If it has...the poison itself is out of your blood for sure and we thankfully have the ability to restore most types of damaged cells. We need to get a move on since the image has to be taken in the same time frame as those of your physical to be compared accurately."
Jim wordlessly complied and after twenty minutes the scans were finished. Inside the doctor's office, they were discussing its implications. Jim himself had already been shown the results and convinced of their accuracy.
"I don't understand. The scan registers no signs of damage, and a physical comparison, even to the molecular level, shows no difference. But I heard about what happened in the armory...it's completely out of character. "
"Change in behavioral patterns won't leave the brain unaffected, at least not at the levels that we can detect, not to mention occurrences on such short notice are unheard of."
The chief doctor let the conversation carry on for a few more minutes before finally speaking "Whatever you do, keep this news away from Kerrigan. You are all wearing psi-screens already..." He turned to address the nurse that had entered minutes ago. "How is he taking the news that the damage may be more subtle than we can detect?"
"I don't think he even processed it. He continually asked that a psionic dampener be placed on Kerrigan, that she be shackled to her bed, and strip-searched for concealed weapons. Maybe the trauma of what happened is getting to him."
"Trauma has been detectable by our scans and curable or at least mitigated by our methods, though," mused one of the other doctors. The chief doctor nodded to show he understood.
"I...I think it's best if we satisfy some of his wishes. Put Kerrigan on dampener drugs and fit her with a psionic dampener, but don't bind or search her. This issue can't be solved in a few minutes or hours, so we might as well try not to antagonize him further."
There was the sound of a fist strike and a crash outside that told them they were too late.
As soon as the nurse had left, Sarah had gotten out of bed and peeked through the curtains around her bed. She felt like her body was being incinerated and had a horrible headache, but she needed to see Jim desperately. To make sure he was okay, and that he hadn't meant what he said last night. The doctors had said there were no signs of mental damage...
"I know you're there. Don't even bother." Sarah stopped. She'd forgotten the warnings that the damage might have been too subtle to detect...but it was too late to turn back now. She resumed her slow limp towards him, holding onto the nearest objects to support her weak legs, until she was leaning on his bed.
"Jim, are you okay now?"
"Am I okay?" He turned to face her, his face an unreadable mask. "Of course not. You think you can take the place of the real Sarah by driving her away? Well, you thought WRONG! You think I can't tell the difference between an imperfect doppelganger and the true one?! You should feel fortunate that you're still alive, and yet you have the nerve to ask more of me still?! Well, I'll tell you this: my gratuity stops RIGHT HERE!"
The next thing Sarah knew, the side of her face hurt even more and she had barely caught herself on Jim's bed frame. Before she could even put a hand to the bruise Jim grabbed her violently and threw her towards her own bed. Her unsteady gait caused her to fall over and knock a cart of equipment aside. He rushed forward to kick her but he was grabbed from behind by the returning nurse.
"That's enough, sir. We'll restrain her too, but you need to calm down."
"Take her from my sight first!" he demanded. One of the other nurses turned to shepherd Sarah behind the curtains around her bed but the latter refused to budge.
"Jim, don't you see what you've been changed into? Where is the selfless man who descended into hell to save the one he loved? What happened?" Sarah stumbled towards him and grabbed his shoulders. "Where have you gone, Jim?" she whispered.
"You tried to kill me!"
"Did you try to retaliate in kind like this after Char, when I was utterly incapable of resisting and caused you four years of pain beyond measure?" She'd already read the corrupted version of the clone's attempted murder from his mind. "You forgave me then, Jim, because we needed each other. And I still need you. I can't go it alone without you, Jim, I need you," she begged. "Come back to me, please!" Sarah threw her arms around him. "Please..."
He pushed her away, but not aggressively as he had before. "That doesn't change the fact you tried to kill me."
"She saved you, too," one of the doctors interjected. "You'd be a rotten corpse if it wasn't for her absorbing the necrotic agents. At the very least, I'd consider you two even."
"If you care so much about repaying favors, why are you sticking up for her? She's nothing but a liability to everyone and everything she touches!"
"How could you say that when she saved you life countless times? When she nearly got herself killed for us? When she chose not to shoot herself on Tarsonis because she believed you could someday bring her back?"
"Answer my question, doc."
"What does my reason for supporting the truth have to do with this?"
"How do I know she isn't brainwashing you? Isn't beneath her to do so; now answer my goddamn question!"
"The Queen of Blades would manipulate people. She - "the doctor gestured at Sarah " - would not and has not. You said it yourself; they aren't the same person. She's one of us, and we look out for each other. We exist to protect those who cannot protect themselves. You taught us all of this, commander. I'm just reminding you of your words."
Jim blinked. It was true; he had said that. The question was, did it apply to a fake? Was he even sure she was a fake?
Sensing his doubt, Sarah tugged a little on his shirt and looked up at him with a pleading expression.
Meanwhile his head felt like it was being ground through a crusher. The pieces were starting to fall into place, but he didn't know what the solved puzzle meant. Only time would tell, but until then...
Jim gently pushed Sarah away. "I'm sorry for pushing and yelling at you, and I do appreciate what you did for me. For that, you can stay...but I can't love you even if you look like Sarah."
She'd expected as much given his confusion, but that small comfort did little to soften the impact of Jim's words. "Alright...well, you where I'll be...if you change your mind."
"That's enough, you need to rest," a nurse said and stepped forward to help Sarah back to her bed. Jim watched her go, a nagging thought circling in his head. He'd been fair to her, hadn't he? She'd saved his life, and he'd let her become a member of the Raiders in return. So why was his decision bothering him? She didn't look like the Sarah he could recall from his recent memory, so why should he trust her?
But should appearance matter? Primal Sarah was still Sarah...wasn't she...? He'd have to find some way to prove whether she was the bona fide Sarah Kerrigan. At that thought, he fell into dreamless sleep.
Jim awoke to find the medbay darkened as shipboard time was near midnight. He looked around and the redhead asleep and fitted with a wireless psionic dampener.
He studied her. Something felt familiar, as if he knew this woman from his past. On a hunch, he extracted the vidsnap he'd kept for the last six years and compared it. The resemblance almost made him want to believe it was her...
"Jim." He looked around for the familiar voice. "Don't worry; I'm not here but I'm alright."
Anger surged within him. She'd not only left him but tried to kill him. He refused to believe he'd ever had feelings of loving her; they must have been merely an illusion. Cast by her. "You...you duped me," he snapped aloud. Sarah stirred at the sound of his voice. Jim made a note to keep silent lest he draw attention. "You came to me, whatever you truly are, pretending to be Sarah, and tried to kill me."
He felt as though he was suddenly sucked out of his body, into a blank space where the voice continued to speak to him.
"Don't be ridiculous, Jimmy. Why would I ever harm you?"
"You may have fooled me, but not even Amon could control hundreds of independent minds at once."
"Why bother wasting effort when yours is all that I require?"
"So you don't deny being a fake and brainwashing me?"
"Deluded, aren't we? You saw what you wanted to see, my dear. I didn't have to do anything besides remind you of what you saw me as."
"Then how come you got into my mind so easily? You'd need a prior psychic link for that, and I'd be damned if I let anyone mess with my head without a fight."
"And I suppose a neophyte such as yourself would understand psionic powers? Don't attempt to grasp what I am capable of, Jimmy; you'll only make it harder for yourself. You see, you're a mere pawn in a scheme beyond your feeble comprehension; your will made no difference then, and it won't now. Ignorance is bliss; one that you've foolishly chosen to surrender."
"Don't think you'd know my best interests from yours if it mattered, anyway. Now get out of my head!"
From parsecs away the clone laughed aloud and broke their connection. The stubborn fool might think he'd won, but there were plenty of other opportunities to make things miserable for them both at her disposal. It was only a matter of which one would succeed...
"...you okay?" Jim came back to his senses and saw that the redhead was no longer asleep but staring at him intently.
He turned away from her. "It's none of your business."
Sarah paused before responding. "You still aren't sure, are you?"
He didn't look at her, but it wasn't difficult to perceive his shock. "How did you know?"
"I can tell you love me - her; you've been doing nothing but staring at that picture in your pocket for a while." He silently wondered how she'd perceived that while she was asleep and her powers were blocked but decided not to bring it up.
He remained silent for a while before deciding he could trust her. She was a fellow Raider and his comrade. "Well, I don't trust easily given what's happened to me in my lifetime..." He heard her get out of bed and sit in the chair beside his. She slid the chair into his field of view and he was immediately struck by her brilliant emerald eyes. The same from the image, though they glinted with something special that the photo could not capture. Jim felt a tug within him and he was suddenly certain that this was Sarah Kerrigan. But the seed of doubt in the back of his mind just wouldn't go away...
Sensing his doubt, Sarah decided to drop the circumventive approach. In one fluid motion she rose and brought her lips to his. Jim resisted for only a half second before he felt the doubt within him wash away and relaxed. He kissed her back.
"Do you remember me now?" she asked as she sat down again after a few seconds. Jim made to reply when a tidal wave of suppressed memories rushed back into his conscious mind. Their first meeting on Antiga Prime. Their first date. His euphoria at seeing her de-infested for the first time in four years.
The memories then turned sour. His despair at seeing her emerge from the chrysalis for the first time. Her killing of Fenix and his fatal vow. Their psychic link began to open up again, and he began to see some memories that were not his. Sarah's anguish at hearing news of his death broadcast across the sector. The moments she'd spent alone among the Zerg, staring out at the stars and wishing nothing more than to be with him. Worst of all, he saw and felt her torment as she was tortured, escaped imprisonment, and returned to find she had nothing left.
Jim wrestled with his newfound guilt as he finally accepted what his eyes had been trying to tell him. "Sarah -"
Hearing him call her name was too much. She lunged for him and tackled him in a hug as a few tears of relief ran down her cheeks into his shoulder.
They stayed like that for a few moments before he gently pushed her off. He motioned for her to sit next to him, but neither was able to meet the other's eyes, the joy of their reunion overshadowed by the events during their separation.
"I...I really screwed up, didn't I?" Sarah asked the bed after a lengthy silence, wiping away a few more tears.
"It wasn't you, darlin'. I did. I let that monster in..." Jim clenched his fists in anger. "...and now people died because of it."
"I didn't - " she began but he gently silenced her.
"We can explain things to each other in time. For now I'm just glad you're back."
"It's good to be back," she admitted and let him embrace her. "I...these last few weeks were hard."
"Are you okay?" he asked after noticing that she wasn't returning the hug. He held her a little tighter and was startled to see a tear run down her cheek.
"I don't deserve this," Sarah mumbled as she pushed herself away. "You shouldn't forgive me for what I did."
"Don't be so presumptuous, Sarah; I don't even know what happened."
"Nobody would love someone who..."
"...Who did what, Sarah?" He held her back as she tried to shy away from him. When she struggled he tightened his grip but was careful not to hurt her. "Sarah, tell me. We agreed that we would trust each other completely."
"And I betrayed it," she interrupted.
Jim lowered himself to her level and looked her in the eyes, though Sarah avoided meeting his gaze. "I never stopped believing in you, Sarah. I won't start now. I wouldn't harm you. Ever."
Tears began to run down her cheeks again. "I..." the words began to tumble out of her mouth. "I sold you out to Nahaan, I confessed I hated you, that I wanted you to die, that I wanted to kill you personally, all because I was scared of getting an electric shock!"
Jim caressed her gently. "I've been tortured too, Sarah. I know what it's like. You aren't weak; Nahaan took weeks to break you."
She wasn't sure about the last part, but she was willing to accept that he wasn't angry with her. She relaxed into him and waited for herself to calm down.
Jim's hands froze around her neck suddenly. When he spoke again, the voice sounded strained, as though Sarah's voice was being emulated through a set of vocal chords that disliked what they were being forced to say.
"And here I was thinking I wouldn't have the opportunity again. Thank you, my dear." The hands closed around her throat and forced her down before she could stop them. Sarah went slack, hoping to conserve her breath until Jim could fight off her doppelganger and cursing her lack of foresight to take psionic dampener off.
"Still holding out faith in your precious friend, are you? This pitiful fool would be laughably easy to corrupt, even across galaxies, were I inclined to waste my time and effort on it. Fortunately for you, I am usually not, but I won't pass such an opportunity by," the clone gloated. "An insecure mind is the easiest to infiltrate, as I am sure you are aware of."
Sarah tried to remain still, but after another minute her oxygen-starved body's instincts had taken over. She tried to pry the hands on her throat off, managing to loosen their grip long enough to get a precious breath. It wasn't enough. She had to help him fight off the influence.
"Jim," she gasped, "remember? You promised...we wouldn't hurt each other." She winced as the hands on her throat squeezed even harder, trying to extinguish her voice. "You...promised," she gasped as her world spun and she descended into blackness.
Jim's puppeteer abruptly loosened her control before her presence disappeared completely. Jim quickly took his hands off the now-unconscious Sarah as his body returned to his control. He wasn't sure why the clone had suddenly retreated, but something told him that they were safe for now.
Afraid of what he might learn if he did, Jim slowly reached for Sarah's wrist and checked for a pulse. He sighed with relief when he found one and lay down beside her, putting one arm protectively around her waist. His promise wouldn't be nearly enough to keep her safe, and he'd known that when he made it. But it didn't mean he wouldn't do his best for her.
"I won't!" Sarah's shout woke Jim up from a sleep he hadn't realized he'd fallen into. Her eyes snapped open, meeting the gaze of Jim's.
"How are you feeling?"
She sighed. "I don't know."
Jim made sure they were seeing eye-to-eye before he spoke. "I won't force you to do anything. But we both know you can't go it alone with your situation."
Sarah cracked a faint smile. "You might as well have," she said, showing him the vidsnap she had of him. "But it doesn't change anything."
He smiled and drew her close, covering them both with the blanket once that was done.
Author's Note: Thank you for being patient with me. I hope this chapter was worth the wait.
On another note, after having to take time off due to senior project, I have returned to this story and decided that it will make keeping track of canon differences to go back and expand "Second Thoughts" and "Let Her Go" before I finish this story. As such, I will be placing "Star-Crossed Love" on hold until they are finished.
Thank you to everyone who's given feedback on this story thus far, especially izwan, Simon22, and Ragnarok666.