A/N: Thank you for all the reviews and support! And *cough* for not hating me ... too much, anyway. ;D Seriously though, you all keep me writing, you know that right? Thanks!

Chapter title comes from the Creed song "One Last Breath" which is very apropos for this chapter, especially from Trent's POV. The whole line goes "hold me now, I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking ... maybe six feet, ain't so far down."

Another very fitting song that sort of alternates between both Trent and Rachel's POV is Daughtry's "Drown in You." Give it a listen if you haven't heard it, I've posted a link over on my Tumblr.

CHAPTER 17 - "Six Feet From the Edge"

"I'm sorry," Ivy rasped from behind me, the words lisping slightly over her fangs. She had her arms folded across her chest as if holding herself in, almost curling over as she struggled for control. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that her eyes were still pitch black and hungry, but they were also filled with pain and fixed on Trent. "I'm so sorry. I couldn't get to them."

I felt Trent's struggles against me go still, his breath catching in his chest and something like a groan sticking in his throat. "No."

"It wasn't Ivy's fault," Jenks said miserably, black dust dripping from him like a shroud. "Even if she could have gotten into the house, it wouldn't have done any good. The investigators say the first few blasts went off right by the nursery. It was over quick. They ... they didn't suffer. I know that doesn't mean crap, Trent, but ... it's all I got." Jenks didn't say he was sorry, but pain was written all over his face and hung heavy in his voice. He knew what it was to lose children and he seemed to know there no words could ever sooth that pain or mean anything in the face of it.

I couldn't see anything anymore, hot tears were spilling down my face and my throat had closed off, making me sob for breath. I thought of blonde, demanding, adorable little Lucy, so vivacious and outgoing. I thought of sweet, kind little Ray with her dark curls and gorgeous, serious eyes. What kind of world allowed two precious lives like that to be cut short so early and so senselessly? I was heartbroken and angry and I couldn't begin to imagine how Trent must be feeling. I loved Lucy and Ray, but they weren't my daughters. This whole time, Trent had been fighting so hard to get back to them ... and they had already been gone. It was too cruel. Too hideously, horribly cruel.

Trent hadn't moved. My fingers were still buried in his shirt, gripping his arm and pressed against his chest even though he was no longer struggling. I felt the silent shudders running through him; the heaves his body was trying to suppress. I blinked my vision clear enough to see that tears were spilling down Trent's cheeks as well. His face was riven with grief and blank with the shock of the loss he had yet to fully absorb. I realized that in all the time I'd known him, I'd never seen Trent cry. Not like this.

Trent's lungs heaved under my hand as he gasped for air. I saw him struggling to make sense of all this, but he couldn't seem to wrap his head around it. "No," he said again, raggedly. "No!" His tone was angry now, defiant. "You're wrong! There's been a mistake. It was a ruse. The Withons are powerful enough to pull it off. Ellasbeth took the girls somewhere and is hiding them ..."

My heart ached. I wished I could believe that, I wanted to ... but I didn't. I didn't think Trent did either. It didn't make sense. This had clearly been a cruel, calculating move to set the elves off into a self-destructive rage by making them think that their little princess had been murdered by some of their own. However anyone felt about Trent or the Withons, I couldn't believe any of them had actually wanted Lucy dead - she was to be their future and had been young enough still to be molded by whoever had possession of her. The children's deaths had been part of a cold, calculating plan. They had been nothing but tools used to spark a war like nothing else could have. Apparently, it hadn't worked out too good for the perpetrators, but the fact that the truth behind the vicious plot had eventually been revealed made no difference to the lives destroyed along the way.

"I wish I could tell you different, but those vamps weren't lyin' when they finally spilled their guts, and Ellasbeth's remains were recovered. Or ... parts of them, anyhow," Jenks said quietly. "The DNA matched and the Withons have spilled waaaay too much blood in the past few weeks for them to be pullin' some kind of sham. This war hasn't done them any favors; it's actually just about wrecked them."

"Trent ..." I breathed hoarsely, my fingers curling in his shirt. "Trent, I am so sorry." They were stupid, useless words but it was true, and what else could I say? Apparently the perpetrators were already all dead; there wasn't even any meaningful vengeance to be had, only heartbreak. Somehow, that actually felt like it made things worse.

Trent pulled away from me, his face contorted with pain and rage and empty with a loss so deep I could almost visibly see it shattering him before my eyes.

"No. DNA can be faked, it's been done before. This ... I refuse. I cannot believe this. I cannot. This cannot happen, I can't ... I cannot lose them. I will not ..." he seemed to run out of words or maybe his throat was too choked to speak.

"Trent ..." I reached for him but he pulled away again, motions quick and angry.

"I said no! Don't," he hissed warningly, glaring at me like I was the enemy, like I was somehow to blame for all this. "Stay away from me." His raw, seething eyes were dark with a look I'd not seen directed my way since the first time he realized I was a demon.

I swallowed, feeling like someone was slicing into my chest, cutting parts of me I hadn't realized I'd let become vulnerable. I wasn't even sure where exactly the pain was coming from. Shouldn't I feel more angry? Did the idea of Trent holding me responsible really hurt that much? Or was it the numb, horrible thought that maybe in some round-about way I was responsible? The vampires and the elves were the orchestrators of this tragedy, but I couldn't pretend that my influence in Trent's life had played no part at all in the train wreck that had brought us to this place.

Was that what Trent was thinking? I wondered. Maybe ... but maybe not. Maybe he was simply hurting too much to bear and the pain was expressing itself through rage. Maybe I was reading my own feelings of guilt into his reactions.

There wasn't enough hatred in his eyes, I thought numbly. If and when Trent got around to truly deciding that losing his children was my fault, I knew I would never see anything but hatred in that gaze again. I couldn't think about that.

I heard a clatter behind me and my attention was jerked back to Ivy. She had jammed herself back against the far wall, knocking over one of the kitchen chairs in the process. Trent's meltdown was clearly triggering her badly. She watched him with the dark, wary eyes of a predator, but was holding herself in check with sheer force of will.

Trent balled his fists at his side, his chest was heaving. He shook his head, struggling as if there were something physically inside him trying to burst out.

Fear iced through my pain. I was in a room full of people about to lose control. If Trent lashed out at me, Ivy would lose it and this would turn into a complete cluster fuck.

"Trent," I breathed again in warning, feeling heartbroken and terrified at the same time. I needed to do something to keep this situation from getting worse ... but my throat was too tight, my mind too raw and I seemed stupidly incapable of saying anything other than his name.

"Just leave me alone!" Trent snapped, retreating as his body started to shake with the emotions he was repressing, his angry green eyes still streaming with tears he could not blink away. Turning on his heel, he abruptly half stormed, half fled out of the kitchen.

Getting distance between he and Ivy was probably a good idea, although I don't think that was his concern right now. I followed Trent down the hall because I was afraid of where he might go and what he might do, but he only went as far as the bathroom.

Jenks followed too, hovering worriedly by the elf's shoulder. Trent batted him away viciously, disappearing into the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind him. A few moments later I heard several loud crashes from inside the small room, followed by the smashing sound breaking glass as Trent took his rage out upon his surroundings. I couldn't bring myself to care. Trent could wreck the whole house for all it mattered now. What did things matter when Ray and Lucy were gone?

The smashing sounds finally abated only to be replaced by the much worse and much more gut-wrenching sound of Trent crying so hard he choked and his stomach heaved. I could hear his retching sobs clearly and painfully through the door as the violence of his grief literally made him ill.

I couldn't listen. I couldn't bear it. Trent's grief was too raw, too consuming and too personal. I knew he didn't want us to witness it, that's why he'd run. Trent was intensely private and controlled to the point that I sometimes thought he was afraid of letting people see his feelings. I could give him nothing else at this point; I would at least give him his privacy and the space to mourn.

Moving numbly away from the bathroom I stumbled back to the kitchen with Jenks dusting along behind me.

"He shouldn't be alone, Rache," Jenks said quietly, his voice riddled with helpless pain.

I shook my head. "He needs to be, for a little," I mumbled, trying to calm my own hitching breaths. I was certainly no good for Trent or anyone at the moment. I was too much of a mess myself. Ray. Lucy. Why?! They were just babies ... it was so unfair it was unthinkable. I felt like my chest was on fire and yet at the same time filled with lead. How had things gone so wrong? I'd been so happy to be home just minutes ago and now it felt like everything had fallen apart.

In a way, I supposed, it had. Not for me, maybe, at least not permanently. But for Trent? I did not think he would recover from this. He would survive it, because Trent was a survivor, but he would never recover. Having had his children sacrificed on the altar of political machination was going to change him and I was under no illusions it would change him for the better.

Al had once told me that hate is all that keeps us alive when love is gone, and Trent and Al had a lot more in common than they thought. I had the numb, hopeless feeling that I was watching the beginning of the end and I didn't want to see what came next. I didn't want to see what Trent would become. I didn't want to watch his soul die slowly, bereft of the anchor of love and goodness that made him fight to keep both heart and conscience when the life he had to lead could so easily strip and corrupt both. I didn't want to watch him wall himself off and let his cold and ruthless side take over until everything good inside him withered and he became the man he'd never wanted to be.

I'd fought so hard to get him home alive and well. Now I wondered if it would have been better if he had never returned. There was nothing here for him now ... no, worse than nothing, there was destruction here for him.

I realized that I wasn't only mourning the girls; I was already mourning Trent, too. Maybe it was completely selfish of me, especially at a moment like this, but I suddenly understood that I didn't want to lose whatever it was that we'd built between us. I didn't want to lose him ... and I was going to. Maybe I already had.

Ivy was still where we'd left her. She still had her back pressed against the wall, but her eyes were slowly returning to normal now that Trent's overwhelming emotions were out of the room. I was just sad and heartbroken and apparently those weren't pushing any of her triggers right now.

"I'm sorry, Rachel," she whispered and I frowned as I looked over.

"Ivy, you have nothing to apologize for. Jenks is right; there was nothing you could have done. I ... I'm just glad you're okay," I admitted, surprising Ivy by crossing into her space and being the one to give her a hug this time. Not smart maybe, but the reality of how close I'd come to losing her the same night Lucy and Ray were lost was sinking in. I couldn't have borne coming back to this mess and finding her gone too.

Ivy cupped my face and gave me a soft kiss on the forehead. "I'm so glad you're alive, Rachel. I'm so glad you came back to us again. And I'm so sorry. I want to stay with you, I want to be here for you ... but I can't. I need to go."

I stepped back and nodded. I wanted her to stay too, but I knew she couldn't and I was glad she was able to admit it and deal with the situation rationally, even if it did mean she had to leave. I could tell it was taking all her willpower to hold on. She was clearly in a fragile state after the events of the past weeks. Reliving them on top of the shock of getting me back from the grave was doing her no favors. She'd already been pushed too far in too short a time and even with several walls between them, Trent was a tornado of raw emotion that could cause another blow up at any time.

"Tell Nina hi for me," I said, suspecting that that was where Ivy would go. It kind of said a lot about the volatile emotional state of affairs we found ourselves in here that being with her barely stable vampire lover would be less of a test of Ivy's control.

Ivy nodded, collecting herself. "She'll be glad you're not dead too." Her high heels clacked as she walked across the kitchen, her body swaying in an unconscious, sexy saunter that told me her instincts were still riding much too close to the surface. She paused in the doorway. "Don't forget to call your Mom and ... " she glanced in the direction of the bathroom. "Don't leave him alone too long. If it gets too quiet in there, go in and make sure he's still breathing."

I was more than a little shocked to realize that Ivy was dead serious. "What do you think he's going to do, slit his wrists?" I said with numb incredulity. I couldn't imagine that, it just didn't seem like Trent.

Ivy seemed to understand my disbelief and cocked her head to the side. "Maybe, maybe not. I don't pretend to know him as well as you do, but loving too intensely is a dangerous thing. Trust me, Rachel. There is nothing as devastatingly cruel as love. I know how hard it was when you lost Kisten, he was an important part of your world. But you're strong, Rachel and he was part of your world, not the whole thing."

I swallowed. The reminder of Kisten hurt, especially on top of my current grief. Yet the fact that the ache had become something sweet and dull perhaps proved my friend's point. I would never forget him, it would never completely stop hurting, but I had moved past it. The memories and the weight of the loss had become simply another part of who I was rather than a corrosive force that could destroy me.

"I can't pretend to understand the bond between a parent and child," Ivy continued quietly. "But I think for Trent those girls were his whole world, or at least the only part of it he really cared about. That's gone now, and I don't know if he can come back from that. I do know that he'll never be able to do it alone."

I couldn't breathe as Ivy held my gaze, her eyes deep with pain and experience. Life had shattered her a few times too, albeit for different reasons. She was in a better place now than she'd ever been before, but she knew intimately the pain of being unmade by circumstances beyond your control. I had helped her pick up the pieces and put her life back together and I realized with a hopeless little jolt that she expected me to do the same for Trent. I appreciated her misplaced faith, but I didn't think I could do that. Putting Ivy back together was one thing, this was totally different.

"I don't think I can help him, Ivy," I whispered, only then realizing how much I did want to. But what could I possibly do? How could anything ever make this all right again? "He's not going to want it, and I don't know how."

"Then he's lost, Rachel," Ivy said very quietly. It was not in any way a condemnation, just a sad, simple statement of fact. "Because there is no one else."

I knew that. Trent was alone. He'd always been alone, but with Quen down and the girls gone, the isolation was complete. Even if Quen recovered, was he going to be in any better shape? Ray and Lucy had been his daughters too and he'd already lost Ceri. Could he and Trent find any solace in shared grief, or would the weight of their loss merely double destructively around one another?

When the world found out Trent was still alive, he'd be flooded with all the usual well-wishers and hangers on, but he'd still be alone in all the ways that mattered. Given the timing of events, I supposed the official version of the story had him dying in the explosion with Ellasbeth and the girls. Once they knew that wasn't the case, the media would have a field day with both his miraculous survival and tragic bereavement. There would be an outpouring of sympathy and a glut of public grieving over his very personal losses that would only make everything worse. Everybody would want a piece of Trent. That was nothing new, but all they cared about was the name and the power. There was no one now but us here who cared about him as a man and not as a Kalamack. I felt a hard, protective rage build inside me at that thought.

I looked up and saw that Ivy's eyes were edging towards black again because of my emotions, but she smiled at me - fierce and sad and proud. There was a soft longing and what could have been a certain amount of jealousy in her eyes, but it was tempered by her obvious pride and affection. "I'm not saying it's your responsibility to try to save him, Rachel. It's not and I honestly don't know if anyone can," she said quietly. "Getting involved could hurt you, badly. I'm certainly not tryingto talk you into anything. If Trent goes down, he's going to go down ugly and he'll take a lot of others with him. If I'm truthful, I would rather you stay as far away from him as you can get. I'd rather you not become mixed up in this at all ... but I know you will. Even if it's stupid and useless and you know you probably shouldn't, you will. When things start falling apart you're going to fight for him, no matter what you think now and no matter how much you might get hurt, because it's who you are. It's better if we all face that fact honestly from the start. I just want you to know that you're not alone. I will alwaysbe here for you, Rachel, whatever happens."

Turning away quietly, Ivy slid out of the kitchen.

I stared after her, not exactly shocked, but definitely struck by the earnestness of her intensely beautiful soul and the loyalty of her affection. My heart felt like an aching sponge that kept getting wrung out and filled up again.

"Thank you, Ivy," I whispered to the empty room, knowing she heard me even in the foyer by the way her steps paused for a moment before I heard the front door open and then click shut behind her. Her willingness to support me, right or wrong, succeed or fail, even when she didn't agree with me, was more important than I could put into words.

I looked over to see Jenks bobbing silently up and down a few feet away, watching me. "Don't expect me to get all mushy, but you know what Ivy said goes for me too, right?" he said, flitting down to land on my shoulder and placing one small hand against the side of my neck.

I nodded, careful not to accidentally shake him off. Fresh tears threatened and I wiped my eyes on my sleeve. It was so important to me to have the unconditional love and support of these incredible friends. So many times, I would have been lost without them. This was part of why I could seem as strong as Ivy thought I was. This was what Trent didn't have, I realized. What he needed. Only ... he did have it, he just didn't know he did. I cared about Trent, more than a little, and I was beginning to realize that Jenks did too. I didn't think Ivy particularly liked him, but knew that her speech before was in part her way of saying that she would support him if it was important to me. It was a start. All we could do was try to be there for him, and hope it made a difference. I still wasn't so sure it would, but Ivy was right. Maybe I couldn't change anything, but that wasn't going to stop me from trying.

"Rache," Jenks said quietly. "It's gotten awfully quiet in the bathroom. Think we should do like Ivy said and check it out?" I could hear the uncertain worry in his voice.

Wearily, I dragged myself back down the hall on unwilling feet. I wanted to help Trent, but I didn't want to face him. I didn't want to face his grief and my own helplessness. That was the coward in me talking and I treated my reluctance with the contempt it deserved as I rapped my knuckles once against the bathroom door.

"Trent? You still alive in there?" I wasn't trying to be funny; I just didn't want to ask him if he was okay because it felt too cruel. I knew he damn well wasn't anything like okay and I wouldn't force him to even think of trying to pretend otherwise.

There was no answer and I tried the handle. Finding it unlocked, I pushed the door open carefully. "Trent?"

The bathroom was a wreck. Soap dispensers, lotion bottles and toothbrushes had been swept onto the floor. The towel rack had been torn out of the drywall. Drawers had been ripped out and flung against the walls, their contents scattered everywhere. The mirror had been smashed to bits. Sharp shards of reflective glass scattered across the tile floor like the broken and cutting shards of a dream forever shattered. Trent sat on the floor with his back against the wall, surrounded by the debris of his grief-fueled frenzy.

He wasn't crying anymore, but his eyes were red and his face wet. He stared blankly across the room as if he were completely empty, not even looking up when Jenks and I entered. His arms rested on his bent knees, blood dripping from his badly cut-up hands and creating little crimson trails on the floor that made my heart lurch.

I knelt quickly by his side, careful of the broken glass. For a moment I was afraid that maybe Ivy had been right, but then I saw that it was only Trent's palms and knuckles that were torn up. The worst damage had probably come from him repeatedly striking the splintered mirror. There was blood on the jagged shards of glass that still remained in the frame on the wall and I could see painful little slivers of glass embedded in his ragged lacerations.

Grabbing a plastic bowl that usually held an assortment of bath salts - now broken and scattered all over the floor - I rose to my feet and filled it with warm water from the sink. I grabbed a tweezers from one of the few drawers still in its socket and a washcloth from the mess on the floor before returning to my knees beside Trent.

I took his arm and found him completely slack and unresisting in my grip as I carefully guided his torn hand into the warm bowl of water. I shook it gently as the water quickly turned pink. Then I used the washcloth to ease away the looser fragments of glass and followed up with the tweezers, extracting the shards that were embedded too deeply to just wash away.

It had to hurt, but Trent gave no sign that he felt anything. He didn't even look at me or what I was doing. I wasn't sure he was registering any of this. It was kind of scary. I wasn't sure if I was prepared for a full-fledged breakdown or having a catatonic elf in my bathroom.

When I finished with Trent's left hand, I wordlessly wrapped it up in a clean hand towel and moved around to fix up his right hand. It seemed I'd been patching Trent up a lot lately. If only I could do the same for his heart ... but I knew from experience that those were wounds no one could mend.

Jenks hovered nearby, slipping an unhappy, pale green dust as he watched us.

"Trent? You wanna say somethin' maybe? You're kind of freaking us out here," the pixy prodded in a concerned but subdued tone as he hovered in front of Trent's face, trying in vain to get the elf's eyes to focus on something.

After a long moment, a small sigh escaped Trent's lips and his gaze reluctantly focused on the four-inch man hovering worriedly in front of him.

"What do you want me to say, Jenks?" he said quietly. His voice was empty. Dead. "That I got my girls killed? That I utterly failed to protect them when I should have seen the danger coming? That the poison of my life has destroyed the only two things in this world that meant anything?" There wasn't even anger in his bitter words, just an empty, hollow self-loathing.

Trent didn't blame me, I realized, he blamed himself.

"I knew ..." he whispered. "I knew since childhood that I was expected to give everything. That the duty and curse of my lineage meant there was only one thing I was allowed to care about. That there was nothing else I could not be willing to lose or sacrifice because that was what made one weak. That was what made targets of the very thing you wished to protect and assured its destruction. Goddess, I don't even know how many times my father told me that." Trent's gaze had gone distant again, his tone even emptier than before. "He said it so many times after my mother died, and again every time he had to remove something from my life because he thought I had become too attached or cared too much about it ... I hated him, sometimes, you know. But I get it now." Trent snorted harshly, the sound catching in his throat like a raw little sob as his blank face finally twisted into an ugly expression of pain and anger. "I won't say he was right, but he wasn't wrong."

Trent tipped his head back against the wall behind him, letting his skull connect viciously with the plaster. "I was such an idiot. I thought I knew better. I thought I could somehow be a better man. I thought I could protect them if I just tried hard enough. I thought I could love something - something pure and innocent and beautiful without destroying it ..."

I wrapped his right hand in another clean towel, pressing gently to stop the bleeding. I felt like someone was digging around in my chest with a dull spoon. I supposed Trent's father had thought he was doing the right thing for his son. I was sure the elder Kalamack's life hadn't been easy either and losing his wife had probably done bad things to him, but part of me still wanted to go back in time and bitch-slap him for screwing Trent up so badly. "This isn't your fault, Trent," I interrupted him. It filled me with frustrated pain to hear him taking all this on himself. His loss was devastating enough without turning the destructive pain inward.

"You think not?" his voice was biting when his gaze shifted to me and he pulled his hand away. "You think Lucy and Ray would be dead if they were anyone else's children? I don't. I made them targets, Rachel." Anger and hatred made his burning, red-rimmed eyes almost unrecognizable as his impotent rage again found an outlet in channeling itself at me. "I brought this on them. My choices. My actions. I knew there could be consequences, but they should have fallen on me! Why couldn't it have been me?! I was the one who was supposed to pay, not them! So don't you tell me, Rachel Morgan, that this is not my fault!" His low, seething voice shook with rage.

I started to speak, but Trent was still going full tilt.

"If Lucy wasn't part of my cursed bloodline, if I hadn't allowed so much political weight to hang on her shoulders before she was even out of diapers, would anyone have gone after a two year old?! And Ray ... Goddess ..." he choked on his own recrimination. "She wasn't even my blood and I still ruined her. If I had just let her be Quen's daughter and not tainted her life with my presence, do you really think she would still have been burned to death?"

"I think you think to frigging much of yourself!" I shot back angrily, my heart and throat both feeling raw. Too much, and yet not nearly enough. "I think the whole elf prince thing and all that crap your father dumped on you has warped your brain. I get that you have to deal with a lot of responsibility and make a lot of hard calls, but you're not fucking superman, Trent. You can't control everything no matter how hard you try! To think that you can is just egotistical and moronic. You're not responsible for every outcome you couldn't foresee or prevent! You're not some heartless, world-leading automaton either. Of course you loved your children! They knew that and loved you right back. Trust me, Trent. I know what that means to a child. Maybe your father was a world class jerk, I don't know, but I do know that Lucy and Ray had the best damn dad they could ask for. Do you really think if you'd somehow managed to not love them, that it would have changed anything? You didn't make Lucy politically important; you made her healthy and whole. Sure, her bloodline means she was saddled with the same responsibilities you have to deal with, but the only way to prevent that would be for her to have never been born. Is that really what you wish were true?" Trent was trying to speak but I kept talking right over him, not about to relent.

"It's crap to think that Ray wouldn't have gotten pulled in anyway. Ellasbeth was using her against Quen, remember? It doesn't matter whether you gave a damn about her or not, she still would have been in the house with them. The only thing that loving those girls any less or being less involved in their lives would have changed is maybe how much you're hurting right now. So yes, Trent. Maybe your dad had a point. You don't get hurt as bad if you never put yourself out there and risk the heartbreak of loving, but that's the coward's way out, and you know it!" My own words echoed inside me and I felt the knife of hypocrisy twist in my chest. Wasn't that exactly why I'd been pushing Trent away all this time? Because I knew the almost impossibly difficult road that falling for him would set me upon? Because I feared the inevitable pain of either loss or betrayal?

"Even if you try," I whispered, my voice catching a bit. "It doesn't work. Love is this stupid, stubborn, unreasonable thing. It's a wild horse that can't be tamed ... and maybe it shouldn't be. I get that you're angry, and you have every right to be. It is horrible, wrong, and pointless that Lucy and Ray have been taken away!" I seethed, my throat closing up around the words and making speaking difficult. "And if those bastards weren't already dead, I would find out the worst killing curse Al knows and use it on every last son of a bastard responsible, even if I took a lifetime's worth of smut for it. Go ahead and be angry - but be angry at them, Trent. Be angry at the people who killed your girls, not the man who I know loved them more than his own life."

Trent glared at me, but the anger in his face was splintering into pain again. He seemed to have no response and instead sunk his head into his clean but torn hands. "I can't do this," he whispered, more to himself than to me. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, rocking softly.

Jenks bobbed in front of him in soft misery, giving me a helpless look before finally landing on the elf's shoulder. "Yeah, Trent. You can," he said quietly. "Just ... not yet. I'm not saying it gets better. It doesn't. I won't lie and say this will ever hurt any less than it does right now or that anything can replace the loss. I've got 54 kids, Trent, but I still remember every detail about every single one of my newlings that didn't make it. I still remember what they smelled like and the feeling of them in my arms. Matalina too. You never get over them. You never fill the holes they leave in your heart. You just learn to live with the pain until you build up scar tissue around it like a battle wound. You get better at dealing with it slowly, and one day you wake up and realize that somewhere along the way you started being able to breathe again without every motion hurting. It may not get better but it does get more survivable, Trent, trust me."

I was crying again and I wiped my aching, itchy eyes on my palms, trying not to snuffle audibly. Jenks rarely talked about his losses, but it was clear how much he had felt them and would always feel them. He was so strong.

Trent didn't say anything, his bowed head now pressed into his crossed arms that were once again resting on his knees. He nodded just a little, acknowledging at least that he understood what Jenks' admission had cost the pixy and the raw earnestness with which it was given. "You're stronger than I am, Jenks," he said quietly, the hollowness creeping back into him like a spreading cancer. It was clear that Trent didn't think he'd ever breathe again. I'd like to think he was wrong, but I honestly wasn't sure. Trent was by no means weak, but not everyone was capable of Jenks' level of resilience.

Unfolding himself from the floor, Trent pushed to his feet and shuffled numbly out of the bathroom. Jenks and I followed. I frowned when I saw him heading through the living room like he was going for the front door.

"Whoa, hey, where do you think you're going?" I stopped him with a hand on his arm. Trent looked down at my hand, then up at me, his expression blank. His place had burned to the ground, he didn't have a home to return to and I could see in his eyes the moment that realization registered, even as he shrugged as if it didn't matter.

"I have a loft in the city. I need to start making calls." His tone was remote and empty. "I believe Ivy speaks true as far as she knows, but I need to confirm all this for myself and make sure that everyone who was involved has indeed been ... suitably dealt with." Despite the words, there was no anger in Trent's eyes now. They were frighteningly blank instead and somehow that was worse. His gaze was green ice - cold, hard and as distant as if he'd left some crucial part of his soul behind in that other reality we'd so recently left.

"I need to find out the current state of affairs and check on Quen's condition. If he's in the hospital he should be moved to a private institution where he can be better guarded once people learn I've returned. The Rosewood babies and their families need to be moved as well, the sooner the better. If Reginald knew about them, others must also. They may not be anyone's priority right now, but they need to be well hidden before the dust settles."

I stared incredulously at Trent. I understood the need to throw yourself into work to run from grief, and this was what Trent did, but there was no way he was ready to get back in the saddle just yet.

"Oh no you don't." I shook my head stubbornly. "Trent, there's a frigging war going on right now, and the instant you are back on the radar you will be dragged right into the middle of it. Us showing up again is going to cause some pretty big shockwaves and don't forget that a lot of people are still probably pretty pissed at you about the whole demon thing."

Trent looked at me flatly. "What do you want me to do, hide?" I could see in his numb eyes that he felt there was nothing else for him now but this. There was duty. There was keeping busy. There was whatever vengeance may still left to be had. That was all, and it would never be enough.

"Yes," I said firmly. "Just for a little while," I added quickly when his eyes narrowed. "Trent, you're not ready. We've been fighting for our lives for like a week, you haven't slept in days and you've just had a huge hammer dropped on you. You're a wreck. Do you really want all those political hyenas seeing you trailing blood like this? Are you honestly saying you're ready to have a flood of reporters banging on your door wanting to know why you aren't dead and badgering you to talk about how you feel?"

Trent just stared at me, but I could see in the weary flicker of dread behind his eyes that he knew I was right.

"You once gave me back the ability to choose my own future, Trent. Let me do that for you. I'll keep a low profile, Ivy and Jenks will help. We don't have to let the world know we're back until you're ready, and if you don't ever want to go back into that circus then I will help you in whatever way you need."

Trent smiled at me then, a soft, sad, faded expression. "I appreciate that, Rachel. But it's not necessary. I already know what I choose. It's the only thing I've ever been able to choose. Without the girls ... nothing else even matters."

The fact that Trent wasn't ready to just tell the whole elven world to go screw themselves after what he'd lost either said a lot about his character, or about the fact that he'd had this responsibility thing beat into his head for far too many years. I got the feeling though, that the simple truth was that this was all he knew. This role was the only thing he knew how to be and he no longer cared enough about anything to look for change. I wasn't sure that was a good thing.

I nodded, keeping my opinions to myself with effort, remembering how important it was to me that Jenks and Ivy supported me whether or not they agreed with me. "Okay. I can understand that," I said quietly. "But it still doesn't have to be right now. The world has bumbled along this long without you; it can wait a few more hours at least."

I took his arm and turned him around, steering him gently but firmly towards my bedroom. "Right now you should get some rest. Clean up. Tackle the beast later with a fresh head." The past few days had been chaotic and intensely draining. Being hit with all this on top of it looked like it had pretty much wiped Trent out.

I led him into my bedroom and guided him to sit down on the bed. Glancing around, I realized that even though they had thought me dead, Ivy and Jenks had apparently made no move to start packing up my stuff, or change anything in my room. With a little more urging I got Trent to lie down. The relative ease with which he was complying told me exactly how bad off he actually was.

"You're scaring me, Rachel," Trent said quietly, voice still disturbingly numb as I pulled out a blanket. "You're being too damn nice. I must be really pathetic."

"Well, you kind of are," I admitted with the faintest shadow of a smile. God, my chest hurt. "But everybody gets at least one pathetic day a year and it's the duty of all good friends to help you through them." I draped the blanket over him. I could tell he was beyond exhausted. Following on the heels of everything we'd been through lately, this had been one blow too many and he was shattered both physically and emotionally. I'd have never been able to get him in here and lying down if he wasn't.

Trent stirred as if he would try to get up. "I should ..."

I put a gentle hand on his shoulder, keeping him down. "You should lie still and get a little rest. I have some things to take care of and there's no way in hell you're leaving here without your temporary head of security going with you to check things out."

Trent frowned, staring at me for a moment as if uncomprehending.

"I mean me, genius," I said with a sigh, unable to believe I was doing this. I was an idiot and a sucker and Trent was right, he did look far too pathetic and it was making me stupid. Why else would I be voluntarily stepping into exactly the position I'd spent the last few years refusing? "And I did say temporary," I added quickly when he blinked at me in surprise and maybe the smallest thread of something else. "Just until we get Quen patched up and back on his feet. It sounds like pure chaos out there, there's no knowing who you can and can't trust. You're going to have a giant honking target painted on your back and I'm certainly not going to be the one who has to explain to Quen why I let you run around un-guarded while he was out," I said with a firm confidence I didn't feel.

"But I need to make sure Bis is going to be okay and call my Mom and Al, and frankly, Trent, I'm beat. Once I've taken care of my stuff and we've gotten some rest, then we can go storm the castle and I'll be right beside you, okay?"

I saw Trent absorb my words with something akin to soft confusion on his face. He didn't understand why I was doing this. He didn't know how to process the idea of not having to shoulder the weight of the immediate future all by himself. His expression made him look so young, so tired and so utterly bereft it hurt.

I swallowed and gave his shoulder a light squeeze. "I know it probably doesn't mean crap, but you're not alone, okay?" I whispered before making my way towards the door.

"Rachel?" Trent's soft, lost voice made me stop and turn around to look back at him from the doorway. "It does mean something. To me," he whispered very quietly.

Feeling my eyes well for the billionth time, I tried to smile for him and ended up simply nodding in acknowledgement. Flicking off the lights, I partially closed the door behind me. What was I doing? Trent was drowning. I had no idea how to pull him out and if I got too close, he'd probably take me with him. I knew that ... but I also knew that I couldn't walk away. Not now. Not when he was like this.

"Jenks," I whispered. "Stick around and keep an eye on him, all right? Make sure he's really going to sleep and not faking us out. Let me know if he gets up and don't let him leave without me." I didn't think Trent had the energy to try to dodge me right now, but he was a sly one sometimes and he was clearly in no position to be thinking straight. I wasn't taking any chances.

Jenks seemed to be of the same mind because he nodded and bobbed his agreement. "Don't worry, Rache. We won't let him do anything dumb."

Wishing that could actually be true, I headed for the attic. I really needed to check on Bis.

A/N: *sniff* is it pathetic to admit that I made myself cry writing this chapter? Don't worry, I swear there's a plan here and everything will work out ...