Thank you all so much for your lovely reviews form the last chapter It makes me so happy that there are people out there enjoying this cstory, and I hope you will enjoy this chapter as well đź’–

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The instant that Damian lowered Anya onto the infirmary bed, the two medics that had followed from the tournament swarmed her, bumping Damian out of the way in the process. They had a right to be worried, but only Damian knew why.

"There's a lot of blood in her hair, check that there isn't any damage that could lead to a brain injury."

"Were there eyes on her during the race? It may be a historic concussion-"

"Um-" Damian tried to interject, but it appeared neither of them could hear him (or they were ignoring him on purpose after his refusal to cooperate before). "It's not-"

Thankfully, Bill noticed Damian's discomfort, and adjusted his breath to project his voice clearly: "Anya has a pre-existing medical condition."

All activity stopped as the medics stopped their bustling to turn to Bill's authoritative stance, but he just turned to Damian, moving all eyes on him.

"Right?" said Bill.

"Er-" said Damian, suddenly uncomfortable with the attention, and the weight of responsibility on him. "She gets fainting spells," he said slowly, trying not to sound like he was saying the words for the first time. "Usually accompanied with a nosebleed. She just needs rest. It normally takes her about a day or so to recover."

"A pre-existing medical condition?" said the medic quizzically, and flipped up a few sheets of paper on her clipboard. "I don't see anything on Anya's file. Are you sure?"

Damian's body was beginning to get very hot. "Er-" he swallowed. "It's… private."

God, could he have come up with anything else on the spot that sounded a little less than a straight-up lie?

"Well, you will need to disclose it if we are to treat her properly."

A bead of sweat rolled down the back of his neck, and Damian gulped. Once again, it occurred to him that he was only just beginning to scratch the surface of how hard Anya must have found it to have hid her secret for over a decade. She must have told so many lies over the course of the years, too many to count, and Damian wondered how she had managed to hide it for all these years.

When Damian's silence lasted a few seconds longer than expected, the medics exchanged a thoughtful glance. They had a patient to look after, after all.

"Perhaps we need to take a blood sample," one of them suggested, as they started to roll up Anya's sleeve. "If there's an underlying condition it might affect the bleeding-"

"No!" Damian barked, and immediately embarrassment flooded over him. He sounded far too aggressive, even though his only goal was to try to protect her - he couldn't afford for Anya's arms to be exposed in front of Bill and Becky. Anya's scars were too distinctive.

Damian desperately tried to wrack his brain for an alternative explanation. "Anya has a needle phobia… if she wakes up and there's a needle, she'll freak out."

The medic was less than impressed, and probably tired from Damian's intrusions.

"Thank you for your concerns, Mr Desmond, but we can take it from here."

"Right," said Damian dryly, but once again, the full weight of the stares of every medic as well as Bill and Becky weighed on him. "Well… it's just that…"

"Anya has a right to privacy," said Becky authoritatively, and suddenly Damian had never felt more grateful to Becky for taking charge of a conversation. "And she has the right to disclose at her own pace."

At that moment, the school nurse joined the increasing throng of people surrounding Anya.

"Mr Desmond is correct. Miss Forger has come here with nosebleeds many times before, although I admit that this is the most severe I have seen her. However," she stressed, and inhaled sharply through her nose. "This is my office first and foremost, and I've seen Miss Forger enough times to know that she doesn't need further investigation, just rest. Thank you for your timely intervention, but I believe you are hired to stand by for the Tournament?"

At least the medics knew a dismissal when they heard one, and Damian barely breathed as he watched them file out of the infirmary.

He almost felt like it was over, but she wasn't finished.

"And yes, she does have a right to privacy, which means-"

She turned to Damian, Becky and Bill, and put both of her hands on her hips authoritatively. "You three need to wait outside now."

"But-" Damian spluttered, but the words of protest died on his lips when a strong hand gripped his forearm and dragged him out of the door.

"We'll wait outside," said Bill in a measured tone. "Please let us know when Anya is ready to receive visitors."

"Wait-" said Damian, but he couldn't utter another sound before the door of the infirmary had closed behind him, and only when it closed did Damian realise that he actually had no idea what he wanted to say. He only knew that his insides had completely rebelled against the idea of being separated from Anya, even for five minutes, and the thought of her waking up without him there made him want to scream.

Damian scuffed his shoe on the floor in a huff, but he knew that if he could be there for her when she woke up, he would wait as long as it took.

With Anya now safely inside the infirmary - thankfully in the quietest wing in the school - all the tension leaked out of him, leaving behind an enormous pain in his legs and arms. Damian quickly leaned against the nearest wall, but without the adrenaline fuelling him anymore, his legs quickly started to shake, and he slid onto the floor.

Even his hands had started shaking, but he was too tired to move. Anya was safe, she was going to be okay, and now that he had done his job, Damian wanted to curl up into a ball and let all of the stress from the past half-hour leak out of him.

He might have actually done it, if it weren't for the cautious and watchful gazes of both Becky and Bill.

Damian pulled a knee towards him, using it as a rest for his arm, before he lifted his weary gaze to Becky. "Thanks for the help in there," he said quietly, and jabbed his thumb back in indication.

"Don't thank me yet, Desmond," Becky clicked her teeth. "I want to make sure that she gets better, and that she's getting the right treatment. If I have to trust your judgement for that, even without knowing the full picture, then I'll put up with you."

"Becky…" said Bill in a warning tone, but Becky shot him down with a warning glare of her own.

"I just want to make sure she's okay," said Becky, and then she turned to Damian. "She will be okay, right?"

"Yeah," Damian nodded, but as soon as the reassurance left his mouth, a wave of uncertainty washed over him.

Anya had always bounced back from her nosebleeds, but this was significantly worse than he had ever seen her before. There was even blood coming out of her ears - and there was so much of it.

She was supposed to be more powerful. That was what she had told him after the lab re-abducted her, and performed more intensive experiments on her, and so far, that was proving to be true: she could hear thoughts from a wider range, she could project thoughts and images, and now she could… what? Put his mind in her body? (Damian made a mental note to come back to that one later, since it was too confusing to untangle at that moment.) He even saw her dream, and now she could project her thoughts to more than one person at a time…

Damian bit the inside of his cheek in thought, remembering the splitting headache that he experienced while Anya had shared her mind with him. What if Anya's increased power… meant that she was also more vulnerable to her weaknesses?

"You know something, don't you?" said Becky accusingly, and Damian's head snapped back up.

"Excuse me?"

"You know about her medical condition." Becky narrowed her eyes on him in accusation. "Is it serious? Life threatening?"

The confusion must have been evident on his face, because she only doubled down.

"Does she still have long left to live?"

Damian's brain had to work overtime to catch up to her. "What are you talking about? That's not - it's not like that -"

"Is this something to do with why she's not good in crowds? Or why she… I heard her…"

The confusion came back to her, and Damian tried not to look too guilty. Becky had been paying attention a lot more than he thought, which meant that he was out of his depth in trying to protect Anya's secret.

Becky shook the confusion off of her, perhaps realising that saying 'I swear I heard her speak even though she was unconscious and her mouth didn't move' immediately sounded impossible, but she didn't lose her menacing glare, and zeroed in on Damian once again.

"And how did you know that she was going to fall?" Becky's eyes only sharpened as she took a step closer to Damian, and if Damian had any space behind him to back up against the wall, he would have taken it. Becky's strength was her intimidation, and unfortunately for Damian, it worked all too well.

Becky continued: "Anya didn't actually fall until after you ran away to get her – insane moves, by the way - but she looked fine beforehand, it was only you that knew what was going to happen!"

"Er-" said Damian, but he had no idea what to say to that.

"How did you know?" Becky pressed him. "How were you so certain of what was about to happen to her?"

He was too exhausted to conjure up a believable excuse. The energy that had coursed through him and propelled him to run to Anya had dissipated entirely, leaving behind aching muscles, and made it even harder to think.

"Because… I'm… her boyfriend?" Damian stammered weakly, his pulse racing in his ears.

It was the wrong thing to say.

"That's bullshit!" Becky raised her voice, and even Bill took a brief step back from surprise. "I'm her best friend! And I had no idea! I didn't see the signs because I don't know what they are - and I'm supposed to know! I'm supposed to help!"

"Becky, that's enough," said Bill quietly, and rested a heavy hand on her shoulder, though neither Damian nor Becky could ignore the hidden edge beneath his calm tone. "I know you're worried about Anya - we all are - but it's not Desmond's fault."

"I know that!" Becky exclaimed, but tears of frustration prickled at the corners of her eyes, and she squeezed them hard to hold them back. "I just - I want to help. If I knew what she was going through, if I knew what was happening to her-" her voice wobbled, and she drew in a shuddering breath. "I could help."

Damian was suddenly overcome with guilt. The way that Becky sounded, her sadness and confusion, and the things she said - it reminded him of himself, before he knew the truth about Anya and her family. Before he swore to guard her secrets alongside her.

He remembered how it felt to be on the outside, to feel like there was something important that he was missing, and that if only he had that piece of the puzzle, things around him would finally start to make sense. The feeling was all too recent, and still raw enough that Damian couldn't help but see Becky's perspective.

He knew how Becky felt, and yet, there was nothing that he could do, and nothing that he could say, that would lessen that feeling for Becky. It was Anya's secret, and therefore Anya's choice. He had no choice but to leave it up to her.

The door to the infirmary swung open, startling all three teenagers.

"It looks like Miss Forger is stable," said the nurse, once she was sure that she had all three students' attention. "So, you may see her, but I'm going to call her parents to take her home soon. Would one of you be able to collect her things for her?"

All eyes turned to Becky, and she huffed in response. "Fine! She did leave her bags in the girls' changing room," she sighed in defeat, and then quickly raised an accusatory finger at Damian. "But this is not over! You can't hide this from me!"

Damian pinched his lips together, saying nothing, and watched her carefully as she walked away, before he rose to his feet, using the wall as support.

"I'd better go too," Bill sighed, indicating his still-damp sports kit. "Give Anya my regards."

"Watkins, wait-" Damian wheezed, his hand outstretched, as if asking Bill to stop, but then faced with the weight of Bill's questioning stare, Damian found it difficult to form the words he wanted to say.

He wanted to tell Bill so many things: that he had no idea what he would have done if Bill hadn't caught her. That he had given Damian a gift beyond belief. That Damian didn't even care if Bill was Anya's hero, and not him, because all that mattered was that she was safe and alive and back with him, because he wouldn't be able to live if anything bad happened to her.

The strength of Damian's gratitude rushed through him, but words failed him once again, as they always had, but he managed to squeeze out what he wanted to say the most:

"Thank you."

Bill, a man of few words at the best of times, seemed to understand the magnitude of those two words, especially coming from Damian. He gave a serious nod in acknowledgement, before he turned away and followed Becky down the corridor.

Damian's legs had stopped shaking, but he felt as though he was still seconds away from collapsing with relief at any given point, but he couldn't rest - he had something else to do first.

His hands shook on the curtain around Anya's bed, and when he pulled it back, his heart leapt into his throat.

Anya lay on the bead with her head to the side, facing away from Damian, exposing the dried blood that had clung to her hair on the back of her head. Both arms rested on top of the blanket that the nurse had pulled over her, and she had thankfully cleaned away most of the blood from Anya's face and neck, although some of the tougher stains remained in the collar of her shirt and sports jacket.

Damian could have fallen to his knees for her. Anya looked so peaceful, now that the voices of the crowd were no longer hurting her, but she still looked too close to death for him to feel truly comfortable. If he concentrated he could see the gentle rise and fall of her chest with each breath, and that alone did more to untangle Damian's anxiety than anything else so far. At least he could reassure himself that she was asleep.

Damian lowered himself onto the edge of the bed, moving slowly so as not to wake her, and reached across her body to her other hand. It scared him how cold she was to the touch, and he rubbed his thumb in small circles on her soft skin, noticing not for the first time how small her hands were compared to his.

His chest tightened, suddenly making it difficult to breathe. This wasn't supposed to happen. None of it. Anya was supposed to win, and earn that Stella Star and finally join him in the ranks as an Imperial Scholar, like she had wanted. They were supposed to still be down at the Tournament, and he would have still been cheering her on from the audience while she shone in all her glory. They would have been celebrating her victory by now. Maybe Becky, Ewen and Emile would have crushed Anya into a celebratory hug while Damian stood around awkwardly, waiting for his chance to apologise to her and tell her how proud he was of her, and maybe that could have been the start of them finally both healing from the tumultuous events of the past week.

He wished he had just talked to her from the start, like he was supposed to, like a good boyfriend should have, instead of avoiding her like a coward, and he could have avoided all of the pain and heartache from the last week.

He blinked, and suddenly the hot tears started flowing down his face.

"I'm such an idiot," he whispered. "I never should have…"

Avoided you. Doubted you.

He swallowed tightly, and squeezed her hand, before he let go, and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees in defeat. He rubbed his eyes with his sleeves, not caring how much of a mess he made.

"I'm such a shit boyfriend. The worst."

"Not… true…" said a hoarse voice, and Damian leapt out of his skin.

"Anya, you're awake!" he exclaimed, at once relieved and embarrassed. "Well I mean, of course you're awake, you're here, that is, I mean, I brought you here, so I hope you're, I mean, are you feeling any better?"

God, what was wrong with him? Why couldn't he just talk to her like a normal person? Like everything was normal?

Anya winced, but she didn't move. "It still hurts."

"Right," Damian nodded, but then he didn't know what else to say, and he resorted to trying to wipe away the rest of his tears, but no matter how hard he tried, they just wouldn't stop. "I got your message, and then I tried to get to you, but I couldn't and then if Bill wasn't there to catch you - you could have - you almost-"

He tried to speak, but his emotions choked him, suffocated him. Clawed at him from the inside.

"I really thought - that you - that you were going to-"

He couldn't finish that sentence. It was unthinkable.

"Does that mean… you're speaking to me… now?"

Damian flushed, and a pain erupted in his chest, like her words had punched him in the heart.

He was an idiot. How could he have thought that Anya wouldn't notice? He shouldn't have become overwhelmed like that, to the extent that he had hurt her again, all because he was a stupid idiot that didn't know how to handle his emotions properly.

"I wasn't-" Damian started. Stuttered. Tried again. "I didn't mean-"

Silence overcame him again and he didn't know what to say. As usual.

Damian cursed himself. Why did his words have to fail him every time that they mattered most? Why did it feel like they were buried somewhere inside that he couldn't reach?

But he wanted to talk to Anya, he wanted to tell her exactly what was in his heart, because after watching her fall, he never wanted to be in a position where he would be so filled with regret. So, he dug deeper into himself, cracking the shell around what he should have told her long ago.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ignore you like that," Damian whispered, and this time, he raised his head to meet Anya's eyes. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

It worried him that Anya's breathing was laboured and heavy, and that she could only lean her head towards him, and not move any other part of her body. She looked so pale, and somehow, the emerald shine of her eyes had dulled with fatigue, and from the residual pain in her head. Damian wondered how long it would take for her powers to come back after an attack like that.

"Becky and Ewen and Emile - they all wanted to know what was going on with us," he found himself saying as an attempt to fill the silence. "They thought that we'd had a fight."

Anya's eyes softened. "They noticed… you being distant. It worried them."

Damian clenched his fist. Of course it was his fault that they noticed anything was amiss at all. He wasn't able to hide his inner emotions like Anya could.

"I'm so sorry, Anya," Damian croaked again, maintaining his eye contact with her. He wished that she could read his mind at that moment, so that she could know that he meant those words with every fibre in his being. "I haven't been fair to you the last few weeks. I didn't want you to hear my thoughts before I talked to your father, in case I caused you to worry, and then afterwards, I don't know. I didn't know what to say. It's stupid."

Anya very gently shook her head, but even just that small movement strained her, and she grimaced from the pain of it.

"Papa told me… what happened."

"I figured," he sighed. "Since you guys are close."

But Damian knew that he still hadn't said what he really wanted to say, and he gritted his teeth with the effort of digging up his deepest fear from inside of him. It was the one thing he was most scared to say, and yet, he needed to hear her answer.

"There's - there's something I want you to know," he choked out, his voice barely louder than a whisper. "I wanted to tell you that - that it's alright if you hate me. I know the truth about my father, and what he did, so I would understand if you-"

"Hate you?" Anya's eyes widened. "Why would you think that?"

"Because, my father-" he gasped as the desperation closed around his throat. "Because-"

Damian closed his eyes and willed himself to finish it.

"Because I'm his son. And he hurt you. So, I thought, that I - that you -"

Anya's voice cut through his mental strain. "You're not him."

"I'm a Desmond," he spat, but he spoke with a bitterness that he had never used with his own family name before. He couldn't look at her, not when he had been cursed with a name that carried such a terrible legacy.

"Damian," she interrupted gently, and covered Damian's hand with her own. "You are not your father. You are not your father. Do you hear me? You're Damian. You are kind, and brave, and amazing, and I feel safe with you, and all I want is to be with you, and I promise I don't hate you. Actually, I thought that-"

Anya turned her head to the side, allowing a tear to leak onto her pillow.

"I thought you would hate me," she whispered, her voice cracking ever so slightly.

"What?" Damian's head whipped towards her, and a pain stronger than anything he had felt that day pulsed through him, so strong that it forced his heart to stop beating, leaving behind a horrible empty weight in his chest that pressed against his ribs, giving him no room to breathe.

"How could - I don't - Anya, I could never-"

Just as Damian tried to fold his fingers through hers, she tried to pull away from him, but he wouldn't let her, instead grasping her tightly with both hands.

"Anya, I am so sorry that I made you feel that way, I swear that I don't hold it against you-"

"I'm an awful person!" Anya sobbed, but she stopped pulling against him, and allowed her arm to go limp in defeat. "I've lied to you every day for years. I've kept so many secrets from you. You have every right to hate me."

Damian shook his head emphatically. "We've talked about this already. We've moved past it."

"I didn't even tell you about your father!"

"You had a good reason not to."

"Damian-" her breathing had become laboured once again as she choked back tears. "Stop making excuses for me."

"They're not excuses. It's a fact."

"Stop it!" she snapped. "Just stop it!"

Her heart had already broken so many times for him, always because of the crushing pressure that was forced on her. For the last twelve years, that pressure pushed against her mind and her heart, and made it impossible to feel like anything could ever be okay - but Damian had been learning about her secrets one by one, and while that didn't take the pressure away, it did make her feel… lighter.

And yet.

The final dregs of her secrets remained embedded in her skin and her heart, the final drops of poison yet to be removed, but she couldn't do it. Not alone.

And somehow, Damian knew this. While her own hands were tied, he reached out with his, turning over fragments of memories and pieces of conversations and arranging them all into a shape resembling the full truth. Her panic attack had left behind a sharp imprint in Damian's memory, so much so that he had decided to save her the worry and the distress of asking her anything directly, and bypassing her altogether, and he had gone to the one person who knew the answers he was looking for. He had figured out enough on his own that he was somehow able to confront Twilight himself, armed with every piece of information she hadn't even realised that he had been collecting.

All so that he could help her.

When Twilight arrived home after the shooting lesson with Damian, he had paused by the door and dragged his hand down his face in pure exhaustion, and he couldn't hide his ragged emotions from her, or the recent memories swirling like photographs caught on a breeze.

She did panic, initially. But when Twilight sat her down and explained everything to her, Anya saw more and more what she wished she had known from the start: that Damian was braver and stronger than she had ever known.

And that she didn't deserve him at all.

Her lungs burned as more tears streamed down her face, and her breath came in shallow gasps.

"Why won't you just hate me already?" she cried. "You have every right! I've been awful! Aren't you angry with me?"

She couldn't even wipe away her tears, because he held her hand so tightly with both of his, a desperate plea to never let her go.

"Stop saying that. You know I couldn't ever hate you."

Before she could interrupt him again, and doubt herself, and convince herself of the worst, Damian gathered his breath, and willed himself to find the right words.

"I shouldn't have avoided you," he said quietly. "It's just been - it's been a lot. But I can't hate you. I can't lose you. I just - I can't -"

He couldn't even bear to finish that sentence, but knowing that she couldn't read his mind right then, he geared himself up to say what he needed her to hear. Even if he had to say it out loud - a practice that never failed to terrify him.

"You could have died today," he choked out. "If I lost you for real... I don't know what I would do."

It was as if the air around them had turned to glass, encasing them a moment so fragile, that he was terrified of causing it to shatter. Anya blinked her glistening eyes at him, unable to speak a word in her broken-hearted daze, while he held his breath, and a tiny spark of hope flickered inside him.

He shifted closer to her on the bed, and brushed the loose strands of hair away from her tear-stained face.

"I love you, Anya. Don't you understand what that means?"

At his words, her chest hitched with a sharp intake of breath, and she couldn't tear her eyes away from his. Lights danced between the golden threads of his irises, and he looked at her so intensely, like she alone held the answer to a question that he had spent a lifetime searching for.

She remembered, at the same time he did, the promise he made on the ferris wheel, and even though she couldn't read his mind just yet, it was almost like she could hear him anyway.

It means I'll always come back to you.

He meant it with everything in his body. Maybe things would get tough. Maybe more secrets would emerge that they would have to navigate, but they had weathered storms before, and they would again. He had dreamed of a future with her for too long to let anything else get in his way.

Love flooded through him, and something flickered in the air around them, like the sun's rays refracting through glass, covering everything with a hazy glow.

She must have seen it too, because when he leaned down closer to her, she didn't turn away, and when he tipped up her chin, she closed her eyes, and parted her lips, soon captured by him in a tender kiss.

He lingered there for a few precious moments, until he felt certain that her anxiety had passed, and his fear had melted enough for them both to remember what it felt like to love, and be loved in return, and afterwards he brought his lips to her forehead in a final reassurance.

It was enough. The relief washed over them both, and soon Anya couldn't stop her eyes from closing as she released all of the stress from the day, leaving behind only exhaustion. In the safety of Damian's care, Anya felt herself relax, and the need to rest overpowered her.

"Get better soon, okay?" he said gently before he squeezed her hand, and sleep pulled her under.

Anya's eyes flickered open, and she blinked a few times to adjust to the sunlight, before she sat up slowly. The first thing she noticed was that Damian had gone, and she imagined that he must have given her space once she had fallen asleep.

The second thing she noticed was that it was too warm. Anya didn't even think when she unzipped her jacket, sticky with sweat and stiff with residual blood, and slid it off of her, sighing in relief once the cool air tingled along her skin.

The infirmary was strangely silent, and Anya wondered when Damian would come back, or when her parents would come and get her.

Her eyes stung. She had cried enough for one day and the tears had left behind a salty stickiness that stuck to her skin, and she wiped at her eyes to try and clear it, too focused to hear the door click shut, and too groggy to notice the approaching footsteps.

So it was a surprise when she removed her hand from her eyes, she saw Becky standing at the foot of her bed, face completely white, and carrying Anya's bags and clothes.

A loud thump sent a jolt through her when Becky dropped everything to the floor, and in the wake of Becky's shock, a wave of dread washed over Anya as her thoughts finally began to clear, and she tried to pull her bedsheet up around her, but it was too late.

"Anya," Becky whispered, and pointed at the scars on her arms, clearly visible and opalescent in the sunlight filtering through the curtains. "What are those?"

Anya could barely breathe, and she tried to speak, but no sound came out.

Becky's eyes darkened to an immeasurable degree, and the air crackled around her as her voice rumbled like thunder.

"Who did this to you?"