This is Chapter 9 in the series.- Wild
Blood & Boundaries
I'm floored and my eyes flash open with sudden pounding in my heart. Cassiopeia is disobeying her orders to not speak of this with me. She's known since the day I was born that we were sisters. And she was there! I want to ask details. I want to know why she was there but I'm scared to ask any more questions considering this answer is a gift. An hour ago she told me she wasn't at liberty to discuss any of this with me and then to go to sleep when I pressed for more.
"As a teenage hospital volunteer. They made sure I was assigned to Labor and Delivery that day." Cassiopeia offers after a moment and I'm relieved for more information and the fact she hasn't made me ask for it. "You were born facing the wrong way and the cord was around your neck several times. By the time they got you out, both you and your mother were worn out. You were too tired to nurse and she needed extra time to recover." She sighs quietly and I think she's finished telling me the story when she goes quiet. But a moment later she quietly adds, "I gave you your first bath and bottle and held you most of the night as you slept."
My eyebrows nearly hit my hairline in surprise.
"In the morning you were calm and very alert. Just staring at me for hours while we rocked in the nursery. When your mother recovered and woke wanting to see you, I passed you off to her." She pauses for a long moment, adding quietly, "I can't tell you anything else."
"Thank you." I finally manage to choke out when I know she's not going to reveal anymore. She answered me in far greater detail than she had to or what I even expected given she's breaking orders by telling me any of this. I think back to the summer she came to get me from the lake to take me home to say goodbye to my mother. The photo I was so worried that would get left behind and yet, Cassiopeia had found it and packed it along with my things even though it was contraband. She never destroyed the photo, as she should have upon finding it. It was a photo taken on the day I was born and I'm marveled now thinking that Cassiopeia was there, too.
"Was she really as happy that day as she looks in my photo? My mother?" I ask quietly wondering about the woman I knew as my mother, the only one I'd ever known until learning I had another tonight.
"Yes. She talked to you through her belly during the entire labor process. She loved you even before you were born and once she recovered, she couldn't wait to hold you." She tells me and I'm astonished to hear Cassiopeia speaking about anyone loving anyone. Until right now I didn't think she even knew what it really was. I've never heard her speak of love before in my life.
"Did she know that I wasn't her child?" I ask scared of the answer.
"No, Julia. She had no idea about any of this. You were her child and she will always be your mother." She answers me more quickly than any other question this evening. So quickly I'm startled. "No matter what happened here tonight, or what Ulric may say in the future," Her tone softens, "she's still your mother."
"She probably would have killed Ulric had she known. She was quite feisty." I say with a bit of a smile thinking about my mother, the one who raised me. It leads me to think about the other mother I've just met who is much the same. "So is Maria. I'm not so sure she won't kill Ulric for all this." I add softly and my smile falls. "I thought for sure when she threw the knife it was going to end up lodged in his forehead." I admit thinking of her impressive and terrifying knife throwing demonstration this evening. "I haven't decided if it's a good thing she missed or not, yet."
"She didn't miss." Cassiopeia corrects me. "She showed great restraint."
"Why?" I ask shaking my head softly in thinking about what the man did to her.
"It's not easy to kill someone you love. To have their blood on your hands." She speaks quietly and I'm disturbed again. Once more Cassiopeia's speaking about 'love' and her tone suggests she's speaking from experience on this subject. Perhaps, this is why she never speaks of it if she's killed someone she loves? It only makes me all the more angry with Ulric at what he's done to us all.
"She's a better person than I am." I say quietly thinking out loud about Maria. "I'm quite certain that I'd kill him if he ever took my child."
"I'm not her child." Cassiopeia says quietly, but adamantly into the darkness behind me. "And neither are you." She adds after a moment and my eyebrows pinch immediately with a scowl to hear her renounce Maria so quickly as any kind of a mother. Especially after hearing Maria's heartfelt recollection of the night Cassiopeia was born. The woman was clearly devastated in losing her child and it angers me instantly that Cassiopeia can be so cold and seemingly uncaring at all about Maria's feelings in any of this.
"How can you say that?" I ask astonished at how easily Cassiopeia can say such a thing. "I was created in a lab with one of her eggs, apparently, with her never knowing I existed at all. But she carried you, in her womb for nine months. Gave birth to you! Grieved for you! She wanted you and loved you! Don't you feel anything at all?"
"Tread carefully, Julia." Cassiopeia's voice sends a shiver down my spine. Her quick response and tone remind me who she is. Whatever bonding moment over my birth I thought we'd shared just moments ago is clearly gone now. Her concrete walls are back in place. "I'm not your sister." She pauses only a moment to rein in her emotions as I hear her voice tremble and the anger slide in at what I've said. "I am your Superior Officer."
I feel an unexpected stab to the heart to hear her so quickly disown any relation to me as well and I blink back my tears in the darkness. I'm surprised I'm even feeling this way given I've only just learned this evening that we are related by blood, but I thought her actions towards me all these years had finally been explained. Cassiopeia was trying to protect me, keep me alive because she was my big sister.
Isn't that what she and Marie claimed at the dinner table this evening was her reasoning for keeping all this from me, was to protect me? If she wasn't doing all this because I was her sister, then why?
I roll over and stare at her back, "Then why do you care about protecting me? If I mean nothing to you." I ask quietly out loud while trying to control my own anger and not cry as I know she won't tolerate that.
"Because you are part of The Program, Julia. I am your Superior Officer and I'm obligated to take care of you, be responsible for you." She answers immediately without turning to face me. "My job is to make sure you succeed."
"A job obligation." I repeat what she's said trying to keep the sarcasm from my voice and the tears from welling in my eyes. "Noted." I answer rolling back to face away from her, trying not to be angry though I'm furiously blinking back the tears I won't allow myself to cry over her or this. If she is only looking out for me out of obligation as part of her job responsibility, then I refuse to feel anything for her, including hurt by her rejection. I close my eyes in an attempt to stop the tears, inhaling a shaky breath and exhaling slowly compartmentalizing everything as she's done so I feel nothing about any of this.
"We are Council Property, Julia. Human Weapons to be used at their will." She speaks after several long moments of silence and this time her tone is softer again though just as commanding. "We are not allowed to care for others or have relationships of our own. We are not allowed to have families. He's made that very clear."
I knew whom she meant. Ulric would never allow it. "I had a family." I answer quietly in defiance to that statement, thinking of my parents and grandparents. She may have become a Council robot with no emotional attachments but I refused to accept that as my future.
"You've been the exception." She says quietly, "But this is the rule."
"That's not true. Nyah has a family." I counter defiantly thinking of Maria and Marna who so obviously love her. Knowing that Annika adopted her and that she belongs to the family Cassiopeia is so quick to reject.
"She's not like you. Her family is not outside this life."
"Well, apparently neither is mine!" I answer flippantly thinking of what I've learned this evening while shifting in the bed, pounding my fist into my pillow with agitation and trying to get more comfortable. "A new mother and sister, two sisters!" I correct myself realizing for the first time that Cassiopeia's twin is also my sister if we share a biological mother. "I can't forget Annika! I wonder if she'd like to have a sister? I've always wanted a sister. But oh, that's right." I mock what she's said sarcastically as I continue to shift more wildly around in the bed, getting our blankets all twisted around me. "I'm not allowed to claim them. I'm just a project! A Freak Show created in a lab! I don't know who the hell I'm really related to!" I can't stop my tears or the rise in my voice, failing to compartmentalize all my feelings flooding forward with all this new information as the enormity of it all sinks in with time. I feel like I'm losing my family as fast as I gain them these days. First my mother dies, my father leaves, then my grandmother dies and now losing these people I've only just met. Being told I will never get a chance to know them.
"When I was little," I begin quietly, facing away from her towards the window and failing to blink back my tears. "I'd pray to God every single night for a sister. All I wanted was to have a sister. I didn't want to be alone." I sniffle trying not to cry. "I guess he answered my prayer but I forgot to be specific." I feel my anger surging that I'm even upset about her not wanting to claim me as her sister given our history. "I should have asked for a sister who actually wanted me, too." I inhale my sob and clench my jaw feeling my emotions ready to explode. "A sister who didn't try to kill me on occasion by drowning me, or stabbing me or shooting at me. A sister who didn't beat me or yell at me or lock me in a container with corpses and ship me across the sea!" My voice quivers and my upset is only intensified when Cassiopeia doesn't move or say anything at all; even as I'm thrashing around on the bed and bouncing her too and taking the blankets away from her. "But as you've clarified, we are not sisters. We will never be sisters. So goodnight, General." I spit out with quiet venom and raining tears in the darkness. The sheet is becoming twisted around my leg and I sit up rapidly trying to kick it off and gasp in pain feeling my wound tear open.
"Argh," I bite my lip immediately to stifle the cry but it's too late, Cassiopeia has heard me. She's turning around to look at me while I bounce off the edge of the bed into the shadow of the corner, holding my hands over the spot where I can already feel blood saturating my pajamas. I instantly feel stupid and angry with myself for doing such a dumb thing in my childish tirade, losing control of my emotions. To now be hiding in the shadows from her like a small child is embarrassing. I can see her face wince in pain as she rolls into a sitting position though she quickly tries to hide it and it annoys me even more. She's hurt terribly, far worse than I am, and yet she's refusing to show it. I don't want to become like her. Unfeeling and constantly having to conceal any real emotions I may have.
"Let me see it." She commands softly with a wave of her fingers that I come out of the shadows and into the moonlight.
"It's fine. I just moved too quickly." I answer her immediately, not moving from the corner near our bed. Before I'm even finished speaking she's already turning to click on the bedside lamp giving me nowhere to hide.
Quickly, I reach up to wipe my tear tracks not wanting her to see me cry and realize too late my fingers are covered in fresh blood. I may have wiped away the tear tracks but the bloody tracks I left behind are glaringly obvious that I was not only crying and tried to hide it, but I'm also 'not fine' if I'm bleeding. Two rules of hers' I've learned well over the years have now broken: failing to control my feelings by crying and hiding an injury.
Her eyes widen and then narrow looking at the bright red blood on my cheeks. She scans my body zeroing in on where my hands are once again pressed tightly to my side. Blood is oozing between my tightly pressed fingers.
"Julia, let me see it." She says again more forcefully.
"I'll take care of it." I answer her boldly, moving quickly towards the door. I don't want her help. "No obligation or responsibility here. I'm not your concern anymore according to Marie. You've done your job." I emphasize the last word as that is all I am to her, apparently. "After years of injuries, mostly thanks to you," I nod sharply at her opening the door, "I can take care of myself, General." My eyes flash to hers as I pull the door closed behind me. I know I'm walking a very dangerous fine line at the moment.
The last time I spoke to her this way, treated her with this much disrespect, I wound up locked in that shipping container at sea for weeks with a dead man and a dead horse. I vowed then I'd never do it again. But here I am, holding my blood-soaked side in the middle of the night with tears running down my now bloody face and shaking with anger at having the world ripped out from under me again.
Of all the people in the world to be related to, it'd have to be her! I inhale a sob leaning back against the door starting to feel a bit light-headed. Pausing only a moment, I quickly move down the hallway fearing she's about to come after me any second for how I've just told her off.
I'm not angry at her, not really; and I feel instantly horrible for treating her that way. Cassiopeia's not the monster, she's the messenger and I know that. She's the older version of what they want me to become. A Council machine that can so easily push her own feelings down so far she seems to have none at all. I know this evening had to be excruciating for her somewhere deep inside. I saw it in her eyes behind the mask she's always wearing while we were sitting at the table. She was repeatedly told tonight she was nothing, no more than a dog at one point by Mikael, and she hardly flinched. She was a master at hiding her feelings, at compartmentalizing the situation before her as it happened and blocking it all out. She is too good at it, compartmentalizing. So good in fact, she never shed a single tear at all this evening, even in coming face to face with her own mother for the first time in her life. A mother she'd always known about and was kept from. Her own father had turned her into a project and relinquished any claim to her as his child. I couldn't imagine growing up knowing my father only thought of me as a project and nothing more. It was no wonder Cassiopeia had always been so cold and seemingly heartless with her ruthlessness in how she trained us. He'd done the same to her.
I didn't care what happened to me anymore. I just knew I didn't want to end up like her. Cassiopeia may be a God in our world of The Worker Bees, but she was just a pawn, a puppet like the rest of us. That was never made more clear to me than this night and watching everyone around her pulling the strings of her life.
Silently, I slip down the darkened Servant's Staircase of the gorgeous old Swedish mansion and directly into the kitchen. A Butler's Room for the servants was just off the kitchen and I knew I'd be able to find a needle and thread in there to re-stitch my opened wound. Servants always had to be prepared to sew on a missing or loose button to make them selves presentable.
"Shit." I curse quietly feeling a warm drop of blood splash against my foot. Looking down I could see that though I'd only taken a few steps inside the massive kitchen the path I'd taken across the pristine white tiles like ink dots in the dark of night. The hair on the back of my neck instantly stands on end when I feel another's presence behind me.
The lights flick on illuminating the massive space and I wince at the sudden bright light. Whirling around I come face to face with Maria who is sitting across the room from me. She's still seated at the small servants table in the back corner nook of the kitchen. Her hand has paused on the light switch beside her as she stares at me with wide tear-filled eyes. It is obvious she's been crying. She's changed into her own beautiful flannel pajamas for this cold winter's night and a steaming cup of tea was sitting on a delicate saucer before her on the table.
"Julia," she says instantly and with wide eyes looking at me from across the kitchen. "What happened?" She asks instantly on her feet and I can see her eyes flash wildly around looking at me. I don't have time to respond before she's on her feet and moving quickly towards me with deep concern in her eyes. I back peddle a few steps away from her when her hand reaches up to touch my cheek and it burns through me, remembering who she really is now, my mother, and that I'm not allowed to know her. It's then I also remember I'd touched my face with bloody hands upstairs to wipe away my own tears and must look awful or frightening given the concern I see in her eyes.
"It's nothing. I'm fine." I say moving away further around the kitchen island trying to put distance between us. "A few stitches torn. Nothing to worry about at all." I give her a small fake smile and divert my eyes when she looks at me so intensely. "Just moved too quickly is all." I force myself to look at her again, "I was going to get a needle and thread from the Butler's Room. To stitch myself back up." I see the corners of her mouth turn up in a small but proud smile at my ingenuity. The smile fades and a deep sadness washes over her features again as she looks at me and remembers why I'm injured and who I really am to her.
"Why isn't Casey helping you with this?" She asks quietly remembering, I'm sure, the younger version of herself upstairs that was so forceful in insisting on helping me earlier with my bandages before.
"I can take care of myself. I'm not her responsibility or obligation anymore." I answer her trying to keep the anger from my tone but know I've failed when I see her eyebrows pinch and I look away.
"What does that mean?" She asks quietly and steps forward quickly seeing me sway and reach for the counter to steady myself. "You need to sit down." She motions towards one of the stools near me. "I'll get my suture kit. We need to close that wound before you pass out. You must have really torn something." Maria announces with concern and strides with purpose towards the door.
"No, please. You've done enough. I can take care of this." I shake my head with welling tears again at feeling this again, the motherly concern of someone wanting to take care of you. Something I hadn't felt since my mother died two years ago and knowing now, this woman before me was also my mother was as painful as it was sweet. Maria was showing the same care in the same ways as the mother I'd always known had done. She pauses by the door and I take a seat on the stool feeling light-headed. "You've been kind, so kind, Maria. But I cannot accept your help anymore." My eyes flash to hers apologetically remembering what Cassiopeia said. We weren't allowed to claim this woman as our mother and she couldn't be allowed to claim us either. It was against the rules. And whether I liked them or not, it didn't matter. I was never going to be able to forge any kind of relationship with her and get to know her if Ulric had his way.
"Why not? Did she tell you that I wasn't allowed to help you anymore?" Maria asks nodding towards upstairs and I know she's speaking of Cassiopeia trying to figure this all out as well. Put the pieces together. "Your General?" She slants her eyebrow recalling what I'd addressed Cassiopeia as upstairs.
"They're not her rules." I answer quietly shaking my head softly, defending the woman upstairs who makes me crazy and yet at the same time, I understand where those rules really come from. "She might enforce them but he makes the rules. That is the Chain of Command."
"Ulric?" Maria asks quietly and I nod ever so slightly to answer her, not wanting to say his name. I can see the wheels in her head turning at yet another bit of new information, "I see. I'll be right back with my suture kit." She nods confidently with a small smile and a wink before leaving quickly, choosing to ignore the information I've told her and Ulric's orders. This woman is a force to be reckoned with. She's able to inspire both fear and awe; it's easy to see where Cassiopeia gets it from. I can't for the life of me, figure out how Maria ended up married to the most evil man I'd ever known.
My mind goes over once again what she said to Nyah, 'That evil can only prevail when good people stand by and do nothing.' It was clear to me Maria really did live by that motto and wasn't about to stand by or do nothing in the face of evil. Even if evil was her husband. I get the impression she didn't know her husband was evil until this evening in discovering he'd taken her children for his work projects.
My head is starting to pound and my skin feels as though I'm burning up. I'm certain I'm running a fever again after causing more trauma to my wound and I lean over the counter to lay my head against the smooth, cool granite. It feels good in spite of the pain the new bent angle causes my ribs and wound to feel. A new surge of blood squishes out against my fingers so I press harder against my side but remain where I'm sitting. The coolness of the granite feels so welcoming. I close my eyes and concentrate instead on my breathing. I'm so tired and all I want to do is sleep but my mind is relentless in going over the events of this evening. I see every glance and glare before my closed eyes, hear every word and gasp of astonishment as the events unfolded and then feel Maria's hand brush down the side of my face, both in my recollection at dinner and in real time bringing my eyes open quickly again. Her gorgeous blue eyes hold nothing but concern as she places her hand against my cheek once more, the backs of her fingers sweeping gently over my forehead.
"You're running a fever again." She breaks the silence while I sit up and she sets down her kit and takes a seat on the stool next to me. "I'll give you another shot of antibiotics when I'm finished. You've been moving around too much." Her eyebrow slants giving me a disapproving look. "You need to rest more."
"I'll be fine." I answer helping her to peel my pajama top away from my soaked bandages.
"I know you will." She answers and a slow smile appears on her face, "Because you're going to rest tomorrow and not leave your bed until I say so."
I can't help but smile at her response and how it makes me feel to have someone care about me again. To see in her smile and feel in her touch something I thought I'd never feel again after my mother died. "I've been taught to take care of myself." I say quietly looking down while she pulls the bandages away and begins prodding lightly around my wound.
"So was I." Maria says without looking up and then flashes her eyes to mine, "But it's nice to have someone take care of you once and awhile." She smiles, running her hand over the side of me face quickly and then moves to stand. "I'm going to boil some water to clean these wounds again before we begin stitching you back together. Press this against it." She commands handing me a new towel to stem my blood flow while she places the teakettle back on the stove.
We sit in silence for a long time while she sets to work first cleaning and then slowly suturing my wounds once more. Neither of us seems to know what to say to each other.
"I've been going over everything in my mind." Maria speaks suddenly without taking her eyes from her delicate work of sewing me back together. "You really had no idea who I was when you arrived?" She asks quietly.
"No." I answer her just as quietly and swallow the lump in my throat feeling as though I've somehow disappointed her along with everyone else in her life she's suddenly suspicious of in keeping secrets and rightfully so. "I didn't realize who you were until you said Annika was your daughter." I swallowed the lump in my throat, "And that Ulric was your husband." I shake my head, "And the other…" I let die on my lips, not knowing how to say it out loud as it would confirm that which I was never going to be able to have: a relationship with another mother.
But Maria says it quietly out loud for the first time instead, "That I'm your mother?" She finishes my sentence and looks at me softly with tears welling in her eyes and looks away, trying to control her own emotions.
"I didn't know about that at all." I shake my head again feel new tears welling after seeing hers and hearing her say she's my mother.
"And you didn't know Casey was also my daughter? Your sister?" She asks quietly and I know what she's thinking about. Our first conversation when I woke up first saying Cassiopeia's name.
"No, I had no idea then she was your daughter. Or my sister. But like Nyah," I swallow the lump in my throat, "After realizing that Ulric was your husband," I pause, "I suspected she was likely your child. She looks just like you." I look at her apologetically when she nods softly. "I'm sorry I didn't say anything then but I was scared, honestly. Waking up in that kind of a situation and realizing who you were. And who that likely meant Cassiopeia was," I swallow hard again trying not to let the tears well in my eyes. "You obviously didn't know about her," I inhale a deep shaking breath, "And until I was sure what kind of situation Marie had dropped me into, I didn't want to say anything more."
"You were protecting her." Maria nods quietly in understanding and I'm jarred to realize that yes, I was protecting Cassiopeia.
"Yes, I guess I was protecting her." I agree, "But also you." I add and see her eyes flash to mine once more in question. "Whatever was going on you clearly didn't know about it and I didn't want to share my assumptions on who she was and how you were related until I had the facts. I guess Ulric revealed those in regards to her at least this evening. But I'm still a mystery." My tears finally spill over onto my cheeks and I quickly wipe them away again. "I thought I knew who I was. But I have no idea anymore. Until this evening I thought I knew who my parents were and where I came from."
"Maybe Casey will tell you." Maria offers speaking in hushed tones with her eyes glancing up towards mine again. "Maybe she will tell us both." She adds quietly and I can hear a bit of hope creeping in that she'd also like answers to the questions we both have of my existence and how I came to be.
"Cassiopeia is not going to tell us. Marie maybe. But not Cassiopeia." I shake my head softly knowing her and especially the look she gave me when she told me it was her direct orders to never speak of my creation to me. Telling me who my biological parents were or why I was created in a lab as an apparently Highly Classified Project is a lot different than her sharing that she was at the hospital at my birth. "I've known her my entire life and she's never said a thing to me before tonight."
"You've known her your whole life?" Maria asks quietly, obviously intrigued.
"Apparently." I sigh feeling defeated and still angry. "She's been training me since I was five. But she just told me upstairs she was there the day I was born." My eyes instantly well with new tears. I haven't cried this much since the first few days of being locked in that metal box. I furiously try to blink them back but one escapes and I quickly wipe it away again. Maria is staring at me intensely with blurry eyes. When I look away she returns to what she's doing in repairing my side. I think she knows I'm struggling to compartmentalize my feelings given the gravity of all this. She seems to be struggling with the same thing after the evening we've had. "I was lucky to get that out of her. If she's been ordered to never speak to me of my creation then she won't say anything about why I was created or how. She's too afraid of him and with good reason." I add barely above a whisper looking away thinking about what the man did to me with the boy's father, the horse and the shipping container.
"What do you mean?" She pauses in her work, nearly finished and ties off the last suture. Her eyes narrowing and voice trembling a bit, afraid of what I'm implying. "You suggested earlier this evening that Ulric's bite was worse than his bark…" She trails off remembering our early dinner conversation when she told me not to worry upon his entrance. "Has Ulric done something to hurt you? To hurt her?" She catches my gaze again with horrified and concerned eyes, already glistening at the thought with unshed tears.
"Julia." Cassiopeia's voice cuts in like a knife and both our gazes sweep to the door by the staircase. The penetrating gaze she's giving me now says she heard the question from Maria. That I was about to answer and tell her of what the man did to me with the shipping container. Her steely blue eyes turn nearly black and shut me down immediately with any answer I may have given. I feel myself slink beneath her gaze and look away.
"I'm going to take that as a 'yes." Maria speaks quietly looking between us and having deduced that Cassiopeia's intense gaze has effectively shut me down from saying any more. She sighs deeply, shaking her head and wipes a fallen tear away with the back of her fingers not looking at either of us, but returning her concentration to my wound. "You're going to have a bigger scar now." She speaks quietly shifting the topic of conversation while applying the bandage. "I'll get the antibiotics." She smiles at me softly and lifts herself gently off the stool, removing her latex gloves and dropping them into the waste bin as she passes Cassiopeia out the door. Their gazes catch briefly before Cassiopeia looks away and then back at me.
Neither of us dare speak knowing Maria's own stealthy abilities as a spy and the likelihood she may hear us and so we wait in silence for her to reappear.
The minutes tick by extremely slowly before the beautiful blonde re-emerges with a syringe and brown bottle of antibiotics in hand along with a new pair of pajamas for me to wear, and a damp cloth. "This should help to fight any further infection." She smiles softly and gives me a hand, helping me to stand against the counter.
She draws the heavy white liquid from inside the brown bottle; gently sliding the waistband of my pajama pants down a little exposing her target area. Carefully she sticks the needle into my skin and my teeth clench feeling the burn. I exhale slowly until she's finished, controlling my reaction carefully in front of Cassiopeia, not wanting to show any pain or weakness that I know she disapproves of. I've already done that too much tonight that she's let me get away with. Without offering or waiting for my permission, and more likely knowing of an ensuing battle of 'I'm fine and I can do it myself' routine we've already been through more than once, Maria proceeds to slide my bloody pajama pants off helping me to get undressed before redressed.
I can feel Cassiopeia's eyes burning holes into mine when I turn my head to see her watching us and how gently and carefully Maria is taking care of me. Again, without saying anything Maria picks up the warm wet washcloth and tenderly wipes the dried blood and tear tracks from my cheeks with a soft smile.
"Thank you," I smile softly back at her when she's finished and eyes flash towards Cassiopeia's, adding, "ma'am." I know I need to put up that clearly defined boundary I know she wants me to establish.
Maria looks between the two of us and I can tell she's read this situation as well, and knows exactly what we're thinking. I can tell by the look in her eyes she's not so willing to give up that easily and is as stubborn as her daughter that I know staring at us from across the kitchen. "You never have to thank me for this." She says and then leans forward and places a soft kiss to the middle of my forehead and my eyebrows shoot up instantly as she says, "Goodnight, Julia. Sleep well." She smiles and turns walking away and past Cassiopeia once more. "Goodnight, Casey." She nods at her with the same soft smile, once again trying to reach out and touch her child but Cassiopeia pulls her hand back, unwilling to make physical contact. Maria nods again, accepting her boundary for tonight but the twinkle in her eye as she looks back at the both of us before departure has me believing she's refusing to give up and will keep trying.
Silently we both head back to my room and crawl into bed once more. This time I'm facing Cassiopeia's back, not about to turn mine on her after seeing the intensity of her gaze in the kitchen that she was clearly very upset with me. The minutes once again tick by slowly while I watch her chest rise and fall slowly before she speaks.
"You cannot have a relationship with her." Cassiopeia says quietly, reminding me of what she said before and clearly upset by the show of affection Maria displayed towards me. The motherly care and gentle kiss greatly unnerved her, I can tell.
"So what am I supposed to do? Treat her like she doesn't exist and ignore her like you do?" I ask blinking back new tears in the darkness, thinking of how cold Cassiopeia is with her' own mother.
"If you care anything about her at all, then yes." She answers quietly after a moment. My eyebrows narrow and my mouth goes dry with what she's said and what it could mean. "If you care about someone, you protect them by keeping them at a distance. Love is a weakness he will exploit." She continues and I feel my heart start to pound while I stare at her back.
"He wouldn't hurt her." I counter in barely above a whisper, scared of what she's implying and refusing to believe he could. "He said this evening that Maria is the love of his life." I add, thinking Ulric couldn't possibly harm her as Cassiopeia was suggesting, simply for wanting a relationship with us.
"You have no idea what he's capable of." She answers me quietly and then pauses, adding in barely above a whisper. "Who do you think did this to me?"
My heart drops into my stomach and I can't stop the small gasp of breath that flees my lungs with her confession. Ulric, her own father, was the one who'd had her tortured. Tears are immediately pouring silently from my eyes as I stare at her and visualize the devastation I know is beneath the fabric of her pajamas. Before tonight, it wouldn't have been so shocking to know he was responsible, really, given what the man did to me but knowing now what I did, my heart and head just can't comprehend it after learning she is his own daughter.
"Do you understand?" She asks quietly when I've been silent too long and then rolls over gently to look at me. Her eyes lock onto mine in the darkness and I can see exactly what she's saying and why. If he is capable of that with his own flesh and blood, he is capable of anything.
"If I want to protect her, then I need to keep my distance." I repeat quietly in barely above a whisper, understanding now why she maintains such strict boundaries, it's because she does care.
Cassiopeia rolls back over and we lay there quietly for a long time while I process what she's just said. Staring at her back I feel horrendously guilty for everything I said to her before in my emotional outburst before leaving the room. I think about what Ulric said to Maria tonight in revealing that he made sure Cassiopeia had always known who her mother was, but forbid her from having contact as a form of control to remind her of her place in this world.
I try to put myself into her place. Imagine what it was like for her growing up knowing all this. Much like it is for me now, I guess. To be told you have a mother you can never have a relationship with; a sister, who was her own twin that you can never know. An entire family you are never allowed to have contact with. I realize that Cassiopeia has already been through everything I am feeling right now about having your family dangled in front of you and then swiftly ripped away. I'm sure when she was younger, she wished for things to be different, too.
I'm not ready to give up on knowing more about Maria or my creation or why I came into this world. It is simply too much information to process right now. But I have resigned myself to the fact that Cassiopeia wants to keep her distance and the boundaries she's set with me. I will respect that. If choosing not to invest in any relationships with anyone she cares about is how she's survived all these years having that monster as her father and the master of her fate, who am I to judge? Caring about people who might be ripped away from you is a big and painful risk. One I've intimately become familiar with over the last few years in losing members of my family one at a time. It certainly makes you think twice about who you invest your heart in and given our line of work, the likelihood that either one of us may die is quite high, a greater risk of investment. If she doesn't want to invest in me, then I won't invest in her. No more malice or ill will towards her for that. We are still on the same team in this world of ours. We will keep things as they were. She is my General and nothing more.
"I'm sorry for the things I said earlier and the manner in which I said them." I speak calmly into the darkness still staring at her back after a long time in silence pondering all of the night's events. "I had no right to question your reactions or feelings regarding Maria and this situation. Losing my mother was the most painful thing I've ever been through; and finding out what I did tonight and then having it all ripped away again… I'd give anything to have my mother back. My family. To feel loved like that again and like I belong. To not be alone anymore." I blink back fresh tears, refusing to let anymore fall and this time I'm successful. "I unfairly projected my feelings on the situation onto you. I am truly sorry." This is the first time in my life I've ever apologized to her for anything. "I was too emotional and out of control. You have taught me better than that." I swallow my pride and admit when I'm wrong. "We are not family. We are not sisters. You are my superior and nothing more. I can accept that." My voice trembles slightly as I try to say it with conviction. "I'll never bring any of this up again. You have my word." I address her again with the proper respect as my superior. Quietly, I roll over, facing away from her again, showing her once more that I do trust her enough to turn my back to her. "Goodnight General." I add quietly with resignation of where we now stood and close my eyes trying to fall asleep.
A long moment of silence follows before she replies in a tone I've never heard from her before: one that holds no edge of authority or warning, no disdain or roughness. It's of peace and calm and her' own quiet acceptance of the apology and olive branch I've extended given our situation.
"Goodnight Julia."