Tellion walked quietly through the house, not daring to think of anything as she observed every little portion of the quaint dwelling that she had come to view as home. After Mark had left, her mask of being perfectly happy had dropped. Tellion didn't really understand why, but she felt compelled to go to each part of the house where she had created more enjoyable memories than all the days of her existence prior to this life combined. Each memory she relived in her mind with the family and Mark, but most especially Mark, was a small slice of mercy that had been granted upon her tortured spirit.
And all of it felt so very wrong to her. Because no matter how much she tried to deny it to herself, none of this was truly real. It was all just a lie she had built around herself in desperation to escape her former life. And it was a fable that Tellion knew beyond all doubt that she would never be able to escape from, not without destroying everything that she had created in this life.
Dwelling on her own guilt and sadness, Tellion ascended the stairs and entered the bedroom. Her heart was pounding loudly in her chest as she hesitantly stepped inside. Entering that room felt so very much to her like going into one of Visser Three's torture rooms. There was nothing she found comforting anymore about the space. There was only sadness now.
Barely able to breathe, barely able to even walk, Tellion went over to her side of the bed and quietly sat down. Once there, her eyes were pulled to the picture on the side table. It was the image of Susan that had kept calling out to her. So many times she had felt its pull, its drawing to her from beyond all known realms of physical comprehension.
Tellion took the framed photo in her hands and cradled it as if it were a priceless treasure. She stared down at the image in her lap. Through eyes that weren't truly her own, Tellion looked upon that smiling face that held so much joy and innocence in it. It was the happy face of a life she had stolen, and a life that she could never return. As she stared down at that still image, her final moments of the Ellimist came flooding back to the front of her thoughts.
Earlier that day…
"I…I have one more question that I need to ask of you." Tellion said to the small floating aparation.
Even though she hadn't said anything to him yet, he seemed to know what she was going to ask him before the first words dared to leave her mouth.
Tellion. He said to her. I think what you've endured today has been a lot for one mind, even one as strong as yours. I beg you not to push yourself any further than this.
"You promised that you would answer any question that I asked of you, no matter how much it might hurt me in doing so, didn't you?"
I did. He answered sadly.
"Then tell me the truth." Tellion said. "Crayak, he promised to help me rescue Susan if I helped him by killing Visser Three. But when I didn't, he mocked me about her being lost beyond my help. And then when you spoke to me, everything that you told me about my life and what I've done, you never once mentioned her, and now I think I know why…"
Tellion…
"Susan…" Tellion said, unable to hold back her tears as she felt her spirit being crushed from the impending revelation that she already knew to be true. "Susan's dead. Isn't she?"
Silence was her answer. And though it should have been enough, Tellion needed to know. She had to hear it from him, to know for sure.
"Tell me!" Tellion demanded.
Yes. Was the only word he gave her. A single word that hurt Tellion just as much as anything else that she had endured throughout this entire day.
Tellion fell to the ground, unable to take the revelation of what she was hearing. Her cries of pain and sorrow echoed throughout the surrounding and uncaring forest.
"How?" Tellion demanded. "How can that be? I heard her…she spoke to me…she pleaded with me to help her!"
That…wasn't her. The Ellimist said with true sorrow in his own voice. That was Crayak.
"Everything…" Tellion weakly asked through her swelling tears.
Yes. Everything you experienced. Everything that you thought was Susan speaking to you, every moment, every word spoken to you…it was all Crayak. Trying to twist and manipulate your mind so that he could have a better chance to make you carry out his dark desires. I…I'm sorry Tellion.
"I don't understand any of this." Tellion spoke in a broken voice.
She looked at her, no Susan's, trembling hands.
"If she…was gone, then how was her body still alive, there for me to enter? How could any of this be possible?"
I told you once before Tellion, the Ellimist said. There are many mysteries, many unanswerable questions in the universe. Even for me.
"Oh Susan…" Tellion cried out, feeling the full weight of her ultimate failure dropping down upon her.
Tellion, the Ellimist said to her. Susan…her life force had left her body long before you ever entered it. There was nothing that you could have done to save her. You bear no responsibility or guilt for what has befallen you.
The present…
But guilt she did feel. A sense of dispare from knowing that she had yearned so very much to rescue Susan and bring her back to her beloved Mark. There was a depth of which Tellion felt her spirit unable to break itself from, knowing that she would never be able to do what her spirit so desperately wanted to.
Unable to control her sorrow, Tellion clutched the photo tightly to her chest as she tried to endure the agony that was ravaging her both physically and emotionally. Knowing what was lost, what she could never save, it was almost as painful as everything else that she had endured throughout her ordeal between Crayak and the Ellimist.
With nothing left to her but time, all Tellion could do was sit and wait for Mark to return. And that proved just as challenging as anything that she had yet faced. There was a fear in her, but it was a fear unlike any that she had ever known before. This wasn't terror of imminent death that had accompanied her experiences in the Yeerk Empire or facing Crayak. This was far different. The fear was from…not knowing what she would face.
Because she now had glimpsed into the void that had been Susan's life before their paths had ever met. Part of her wished that she hadn't asked that final request from the Ellimist, but it was a thirst for knowledge that had to be quenched.
Earlier…
Tellion brushed the tears from her eyes and looked to the Ellimist with a deeply entrenched sadness.
"Show me."
Show you what? The Ellimist asked, again feigning ignorance.
"You have to power to take me into the past, to places that I've never been. Show me…how this happened to Susan."
Tellion, you've already suffered enough today. I don't know if your mind or spirit can weather this tragedy. It's…
"No." Tellion told him in a shallow voice. Her mind and spirit were indeed on the verge of breaking under the immense strain of everything that she had already endured, but she couldn't turn back now. She had to press on. For Ellaine, Linda, and Arthur. For Mark. But especially for Susan. "I…have to know what happened to her. I have to know what made Susan this way."
The Ellimist gave Tellion an unusual look. There was sadness in his gaze, but there was also something else. An unexplained expression flashed across his gentle blue face. Tellion had no way of knowing what it meant, she could only guess that what she was seeing was…hope?
Tellion, if you press forward with this decision, it will morph your life forever. The Ellimist told her, his tone feeling as both a statement and a warning. Witnessing this memory will cast you off of the time thread that your life is currently on, and onto a course that cannot be altered for the rest of your life. The branches that it will present to you will be so different from this thread that you are currently traveling that even I cannot foresee the outcome of. If that outcome is for good or ill I cannot say. I trust you fully understand the severity of what I am telling you, Tellion.
She didn't. And Tellion didn't care. All that mattered to her in that moment was that she needed to know.
"I accept whatever fate this brings me." she told him. "I have to do this, for Susan. Now…please show me."
Then prepare yourself Tellion. He said, taking her hand once again, and taking her away from the present and into a very painful past.
Tellion was sitting in the passanger side of a human vehicle, driving along an unknown expanse of road that she didn't recognize, at an uncomfortably fast speed, and the vehicle was constantly shifting erratically. It only took Tellion an instant to realize that she wasn't alone. She turned her head, and felt her entire body freeze.
Sitting across from her…was Susan.
Not the lifeless form that she had always known, but as she was before their fates had ever crossed. But what she was seeing now was not what Tellion expected. What was sitting across from her was not how she had imagined Susan. All Tellion's experiences of Susan were of a happy, joyful native that had been full of life.
Susan…was crying. Her tears were flowing just as freely down her face as the many times Tellion had done when she had been deeply distressed. Her face was twisted into something that did not appear kind, or inviting.
No. Here, in this moment, she seemed completely full of anger. Of even, rage.
"Dammit Mark!" Susan screamed to no one, completely unaware of Tellion's presence next to her. "Who the hell do you think you are?"
She growled in the same anger that Tellion had displayed once or twice before in her short life. She repeatedly slammed her hand that wasn't controlling the vehicle against its steering wheel.
"You think you can control my life?! That you can tell me what I can and can't do, you bastard?! You think that I'm happy about any of it?" Susan screamed, her words unexplainably disoriented. Even as she spoke, the vehicle continued to swerve slightly from side to side from her lack of full control.
"It's not my fault!" Her cry echoed throughout the confines of the small vehicle. "I…I never wanted any of this to happen! I didn't want us to lose…"
Even as at the high speed they were going, Tellion could see that they were quickly passing a desolate stretch of landscape. There were faint outlines of building foundations that were beginning to be constructed all around. But…that's not what either her or Susan noticed. No, there was something else.
Even as she speed along, movement from above caught both their attentions. Tellion looked up at the night sky, and felt her jaw drop in shock. It came from the blackness so quickly, streaking through the air like an almost majestic metallic bird. Tellion instantly knew what it was.
An Andalite fighter.
It was damaged badly, leaking bluish trails of ion vapor in its wake, the light from its unstable engines casting the surrounding atmosphere in an almost gentle hue. Then Tellion remembered the last moments of the space battle that had doomed the Galaxy Tree, the last Andalite fighter to survive had also fallen into the atmosphere just like the other two before it.
"Elfangor." Tellion whispered, even though she knew Susan couldn't hear her.
Thinking of her, Tellion looked over to Susan, and saw her face peering through the front glass with even more shock. Her eyes followed the alien craft as it glided silently through the darkness.
"What the…what the hell is that?" she blurted out loud, her entire attention focused on Elfangor's crippled fighter as it streaked right over her vehicle, heading on a landing vector to the nearby empty construction lot.
Susan's attention instinctively followed the fighter as it went down, oblivious that her hands also pulled the wheel of the vehicle in the same direction, taking her car off the designated lane.
"Susan!" Tellion screamed at her as the car swerved off the road, her hands passing right through the wheel as she desperately attempted to take control of the vehicle. Fear spiked all through her mind when she saw that Susan didn't have the restraint harness of her seat secured around her. "Pull the wheel back, Susan! Pull it back now!"
Too late.
The car jumped off the road at reckless speed. The impact pulled Susan's attention away from the stricken Andalite fighter, in time to see the massive artificial light structure directly in front of her suddenly become illuminated by her car's personal lights. Susan screamed. So did Tellion. Susan slammed her feet on the vehicle's breaks. There was a horrific screeching sound, one that stabbed Tellion right into the deepest center of her spirit. Her body involuntarily froze the moment before impact. Then the vehicle struck the fixed structure head on with a deafing crash. Tellion was thrown forward from her seat from the force through the frontal glass shield. She felt the intense pain of her head smashing through the glass shield, flying wildly through the uncaring night air, and hitting the ground hard. She rolled over and over in an uncontrollable heap, stopping only when she found herself staring up at the uncaring night sky. Pain exploded throughout every single portion of her body, causing agony that had only been equaled to her final moments of the Fuge. Her weak and battered body couldn't move for what felt like the entire night. Yet, as fast as it had overwhelmed her, the pain subsided, and Tellion found that her body was beginning to respond to her commands. But the weariness, that remained.
What, what had just happened? Was she alive? It didn't feel like she was.
Susan!
Thinking of her host, Tellion knew that she had to move.
Weakly climbing to her feet, Tellion saw the battered and smashed vehicle nearby. Its whole front end was wrapped almost completely around the fixed light structure. Tellion couldn't explain it, but seeing the wreckage made her suddenly feel the injuries of the crash again. Her entire body was riddled with agony, both externally and internally. It was only through her unbreakable force of will that Tellion was able to remain on her feet and slowly advance towards the wreckage. Each step was a hellish ordeal, even the insides of her bones radiated suffering. Yet Tellion forced herself to push forward. Her mind was laser focused on one single understanding. One solitary goal. She had to get to Susan.
She had to help her.
As Tellion weakly dragged herself closer, what she saw made her heart feel as if it had been ripped from her chest.
Susan was sprawled across the wrecked hood of the vehicle. Small shards of glass lay all around her, and embedded all through her body. Her red blood seeped across the ruined metallic surface. There was so much of it that the remains of the hood had been stained red. It was suck a horrific sight to behold.
She was drawing in slow, shallow breaths. Every intake of oxygen for Susan appeared a terrifying struggle for her. She was gravely injured.
Even as Tellion moved to go to her, a pair of individuals rushed past her to the crash site. They stopped just as the edge of the wreck. Tellion went to them, and noticed that neither of them were making any effort to help Susan. Neither did they seem to have any care about her injuries.
"Why are you just standing there?" Tellion shouted to them even though she knew they couldn't hear her. "She's hurt! Help her!"
"What a freaking waste." One of the pair commented, gazing down at Susan's ruined body.
"Should we call this in?" the other asked.
"What for? Visser Three already finished off the Andalite scum, but there was a witness. Our job is to hold the perimeter until they catch them."
"What about her?"
"What about this human? You see how messed up she is? She's done for. We'll wait another ten minutes before calling the crash in. By the time anyone gets here, our forces will be gone and she'll be too far gone to save. Too bad, she would have made a suitable host."
Even as they spoke amongst themselves, Tellion sadly watched as Susan's agonizing effort just to breathe. Each time her ragged breath wheezed in and out of her battered lips, Tellion could feel a momentary spike of pain through her own body. It wasn't the pain that hurt Tellion the most, it was knowing the how scared Susan must have been in at that moment. Amidst all of that pain and fear, she could see Susan's hand reaching out into the night, past the two controllers, and into the surrounding darkness. Tellion didn't know why, but she followed Susan's extended arm and looked past the pair of controllers. Even at the distance she was, Tellion saw a pair of dark shapes darting across the road. They were hard to make out, only that they were humanoid in their outlines, and long hair flowed in the wake of their running.
One of the two stopped for a moment to look their way, but the other quickly grasped them and the pair disappeared into the blackness.
"Mark…"
Tellion heard Susan's pitiful cry. She looked to the two controllers. Neither had heard her as they were too busy conversing to themselves, and were completely oblivious to the two individuals that had just slipped past them.
Tellion went to the edge of the vehicle, and knelt to where she and Susan were eye level. The sorrow that Tellion felt was almost too great to bear as she saw Susan's tears mixing with blood seeping from her facial injuries. Her face, it was full of absolute terror.
The same kind of fear that Temrash had on his face in the final moments they had shared. Susan…she must have known in that instant that she was going to die. And she was rightfully terrified, because she was all alone.
Not knowing what she would, or could do, Tellion reached out to Susan's grasping hand.
"I'm here for you Susan." Tellion told her, gently taking her hand even though she herself felt no physical contact from their touch.
"Mark…" Susan whimpered. "I…sorry…I want you…hold me…"
Tellion blinked repeatedly as her own tears flooded her eyes, feeling her own sorrow overwhelming her as she tried to offer any kind of comfort to her dying host.
"You're not alone Susan. I'm here for you. I'll always be here, Susan." Tellion whispered to her, squeezing her hand futilely. "We are connected…forever."
In that final moment, Tellion felt it. The pressure of her fingers wrapping around Susan's trembling hand. Tellion saw Susan's eyes widen with recognition from Tellion's voice, and her touch. She…Susan, heard her. She felt her. Susan saw her. Somehow, against all odds, their lives were linked in that instant. They were connected!
"Wh…wha…" Susan gurgled from her bloodied mouth.
"It's alright Susan." Tellion whispered to her, grasping her hand tighter. "You don't have to be afraid anymore. Mark, he never left you. He never stopped caring for you. You don't have to suffer anymore. You can rest now. I'll always be here for you. You'll never be alone again."
Her words, her touch, caused a calmness to pass over Susan's injured face. Her eyes shinned with a peace she so desperately needed, and her battered mouth weakly twisted into a smile. Tellion tried to caress Susan's slashed face in a vain attempt to sooth Susan in her host's final moments of life.
And then she was back in the present. Back in the forest. Back before the Ellimist. Tellion wildly grasped at the empty air that was before her, her hand touching nothing. Susan, the real
Susan, was gone. She had been pulled away from her when Susan needed her the most.
Tellion screamed in anger, spinning to face the Ellimist.
"You bastard!" she screamed, swinging wildly at his face, only to have her fist pass through him as easily as if it were air. "How could you do that? I was there! She knew I was there! She felt me! We were connected! You pulled me away from Susan in her dying moment!"
Tellion continued to wildly swing at the Ellimist, yet all of her blows continued to pass through him with ease.
I warned you about this experience Tellion. The Ellimist told her. I begged you to consider the consequences of what it would bring to you, but you insisted on proceeding. And now, you must live with the full understanding of this knowledge and the experience that it has brought you.
Tellion lowered her head in devastation, knowing that there was nothing more that she could do.
"Then…it's all over." Tellion whispered. "Everything that I fought for, everything that I hoped to save, it's all been for nothing?"
No. It hasn't.
"Susan's dead, damn you!" Tellion screamed. "My one and only true hope was to save her and bring her back to Mark. But now that's over. There's no hope of that ever happening. What more do I have to live for?"
There is still a great deal that you can still live for Tellion, and still much that can be saved.
"What is there left in my life to save?" she wailed, unable to control her sorrow.
You were never given the chance to save Susan, but you were able to be there to ease her passing. She wasn't alone, and she wasn't afraid in her final moments of life. And there's much more that you can do, Tellion. You can still save Mark.
Hearing him speak of Mark, it caused Tellion's weary head to lift. "What do you mean? Why would…he ever need me?"
He appears strong and durable, but Mark is still very much fragile from the entire ordeal of losing his wife. It was only you becoming Susan, and bringing what he believed was his wife, back to him that has saved Mark. He needs Susan in his life, more than perhaps you could ever realize.
"But I'm not her!" Tellion yelled at him. "I'm not the person that he…I'm just a parasitic slug that's wrapped around his dead wife's brain!"
And you still have chosen to remain at his side despite knowing that. The Ellimist said. Not just because you wanted to bring Susan back to him. There's more to it than even you wish to admit to yourself. You feel something for him, something that you can't explain, you only know that it is a connection that you've never felt for another living being before. You have fought against it with nearly as much fanatical desire as you have to protect the lives of others. And despite your best efforts, that feeling has only grown stronger. Is that not true?
She didn't want to answer him, but she knew that his power was far too great to even try such a feat. So she told him the truth.
"Yes." Tellion said. "But I…don't know what this…feeling I have for him is. There's no words in Yeerk history for this emotion, this warmth and connection he brings to me. What is this warmth that I feel for him?"
What you are feeling now Tellion, the Ellimist said, is the most powerful force in the entire universe. It is greater than myself. It is even greater than Crayak. It is a power that knows no limitations. Neither distance nor time can diminish its power. It has many words, across countless tongues throughout the ages of this galaxy, but its strength remains the same as the day that the universe first became aware of its existence.
"Then…what am I supposed to do?"
That is something that you will have to decide for yourself Tellion. But I will leave you with this, there is no shame in you desiring to save the man that Susan cared for, even if he doesn't know the full truth.
The Present…
Tellion dwelled on everything that the Ellimist had told her, letting her own confused feelings tear at her insides as if she were being cut apart from the inside out. When she finally heard the front door open far below, Tellion began to trembling as the fear started consuming her. That fear morphed into a building terror as she heard his footsteps ascending the stairs, drawing him closer to her. And the inevitable moment that she had been dreading all day finally came.
Not knowing what to do, Tellion just kept looking at Susan's smiling face staring back up at her. A life that she was a complete stranger to. A life that she had never known. And a life she had unintentionally taken away.
"Susan?" Mark's voice called out as the door slowly opened.
She didn't answer him.
"Susan…" Mark asked, moving inside the room. "Honey, what are you doing up here?"
Tellion still didn't respond to him. She kept her back to him, not even acknowledging that he had spoken. No, she just kept looking at Susan's smiling face.
So different, so alien to how she had been that final night. Tellion didn't know why Susan had been mad at Mark, or what she had been talking about. The only thing that Tellion knew for certain was how absolutely terrified she had been in those final moments. Mercifully, she had somehow been able to bridge the gap between space and time, so that she could be there for Susan in her dying moments. In that last instant, there had been a look in her eyes that Tellion would never forget. The trust, the comfort that had lurked in the core of her iris just before Tellion had been pulled away caused so much disturbance in her tortured spirit. She didn't know what to truly feel from that experience, only that her sorrow and guilt were what she was feeling now.
"Babe," Mark asked, moving closer. "Is everything ok?"
Tellion tried to swallow what she felt was an obstruction in her throat, but it remained.
"Why?" she whispered so softly that she barely heard herself.
"Why? Why what?" Mark asked, his voice full of confusion.
Tellion ran her fingers around the edges of Susan's face.
"Why…do you want me…to be here with you?"
Mark made a strange noise, something between a gasp and a laugh.
"Um…honey, what are you talking about?"
"Why do you want me here with you?" Tellion asked again, the first visible teardrop splattering on Susan's frozen image.
"What kind of silly question is that to ask me?" Mark asked. "And where is this all coming from all of a sudden?"
"Tell me." Tellion asked, her voice growing louder even as she couldn't bring herself to look at him.
"Because you're my wife." Mark told her.
"But I'm not…" Tellion told him, feeling the tears seeping from her eyes as she shook all over from all the emotions raging through her body. "I can't keep pretending that I am."
"What are you talking about? Of course you are." Mark said, moving to be right in front of her. "You're crying, why…"
"I'm not…Susan." Tellion said, unable to take her eyes off of Susan's image resting in her lap. "I can't keep lying to myself."
"Susan I don't know what…"
"I'm not Susan!" Tellion screamed, leaping to her feet and hurling the picture against the nearby wall, wincing as the glass shattered and sprayed everywhere. "I'm not your wife!"
Mark jumped back from Tellion's unexpected outburst, his face full of shock. "What the hell?"
"This isn't real! This…house, this room, this…" Tellion screamed at him, grasping the sheets on the bed and throwing them off. She then grasped one of the trinkets on the nearby dresser that Susan had liked so much, hoisting it high over her head. "You and me, it's just an illusion! This is a lie, it's all just a lie!"
"Susan, calm down!" Mark shouted as he moved towards her.
"Your wife is gone, damn you! Don't you understand that?" Tellion screeched, shattering the trinket at her feet in blind emotional fury. Even as she did this, Mark continued to advance cautiously towards her. "She's dead! Your wife is dead!"
He didn't say anything. He just stopped and stood there in silence as Tellion continued to pour out her sorrow and grief at him.
"This isn't my life! There's nothing here that belongs to me. All these…moments, these memories that you made with her, they're just memories! None of this belongs to me, not even you Mark! You're holding on to a hope that's nothing but a stupid dream. I'm not Susan, and I never will be. I'm just…"
She could have said it in that instant. She could have told him the real truth of who, and what she really was. But something forced Tellion to hold her tongue. Even in her nearly deranged state, she didn't want to put Mark in that kind of danger. And she heard Akdor's voice continuing to mock her from beyond death.
If he were to see you, the real you, he would crush and grind you under his heel in disgust.
"I'll never be the woman that you remembered. She's gone, forever. All that's left here, is just this…"
Mark still said nothing back. At least not right away. He just remained there in front of her, his head lowered as he stared at the empty space of floor between them. And the broken shards of the tiny treasure that his dead wife had cherished.
"I guess you're right." he spoke in a faint voice that could barely be heard. "It was stupid of me to think that things would just…go back to the way they were. I hoped…some day we would get back something of what we once were. I should have realized it sooner, that the woman I gave my life to, my wife Susan, is really dead. But none of that makes any difference to me now."
"What do you mean?"
His head lifted to the ceiling with his eyes closed. Tellion watched as he drew in a deep breath before lowering his face to meet hers.
"You're still here, even if you'll never be her, and I..."
She didn't know what he meant by that, but her body instantly tensed as he moved towards her again. Tellion raised her fists defensively, even though she knew in the depths of her very spirit that Mark would never hurt her. He wasn't dissuaded from drawing closer by her actions.
"Just let it end Mark. Stop hurting me, and yourself…" she pleaded with him.
Mark's answer to her was just to step closer and pull his arms around her. Tellion growled in frustration as she was pulled into an embrace that she both desired and hated at the same time.
"Damn you." she growled, weakly slamming her fists into his solid chest. "Why can't you just…let go? Why do you keep…me around?"
"I can't let you go." he whispered to her, pulling his arms tighter around her even as she feebly resisted him. "Not now, not ever."
"Why?" Tellion begged him. "Why do you…"
"Because," Mark whispered soothingly into her ear, "I…I love you."
Tellion's eyes widened at the sound of that single word he spoke to her. Love. She had never heard him say that to her before. And yet, she instantly understood so very much, what it truly meant to him, and her, in that instant they were sharing.
This feeling, we Yeerks don't have a word for this feeling. What is it?
"Love." Tellion repeated Mark's word in a barely audible voice.
What you're feeling for Mark Tellion, is the most powerful force in the universe. It knows no physical boundaries. Neither distance nor time can diminish its power.
"I told you once before." Mark's words tickled at the edge of her ears. "I don't care if you are never the same woman that I remembered. I know…that I still love who you are now."
She didn't want to look at him in that moment, because she was so terrified of what would overcome her if she did. But the attraction, the pull that he unexplainably had over her broke down every feeble attempt by Tellion to resist it. Her face slowly, cautiously rose to meet his. The way he looked at her, it reminded Tellion so very much of the night she had first met him. There was so many hidden emotions lurking within his scared eyes that Tellion couldn't have any idea of what he was thinking.
"I know our marriage wasn't the best one. I made a lot of mistakes, and I blame myself for what happened to you. And I have been living every day in regret since the night of the accident. I think…if I had just done things differently, you never would have left the house that night, you never would have…"
She heard so much hurt in his voice, it drew her closer to him, tearing down even more barriers of resistance that she had been trying to erect to protect Mark from her own unsure feelings. His wavering eyes stared deeply at hers.
"But you coming back to me…it's a second chance for us, and for me. I know that none of this has been easy, and I know that it'll only get harder from here. But I'm not ready to give up on us. As long as there's hope, I'm going to keep fighting for you."
He hesitantly placed a trembling hand on her cheek, causing Tellion's whole body to shudder from the faint touch.
"And I…I think you feel the same way for me. So just tell me, right here, right now, that I'm not imagining this. Just tell me that when you're with me, when you look at me the way you do, that you feel the same way for me. And if you do, then I will fight with you for everything that we can still be."
Mark shut his eyes for a second before staring at her again.
"But if you don't, I'll try my best to understand. We'll call your mom and she can come take you back to your parents place. And I'll try to make the separation as quick and easy for you as possible."
His hand pushed aside the few bits of hair that had fallen over her face, oh how she so very much enjoyed him doing that. It morphed the warmth within her that she now knew was love into a simmering blaze of raw emotion. She was never more confused and scared than she was right then.
"Just be honest with me, Susan, or whoever you want to call yourself. I love you, even this new person that you've become. Do you love me too?"
I don't. I don't! I DON'T! Tellion screamed over and over into her weary mind.
She couldn't do this. She couldn't feel this way for him. She had wanted, oh how she had so desperately wanted, to bring Mark's beloved wife back to him. He would never fully understand just how far Tellion would have been willing to go to make that possible. But knowing now that Susan was dead and gone forever, Tellion was adrift in a wild sea of smashing and crashing emotions that tossed her spirit about.
I'm not your wife. Tellion hissed in her mind as she stared up at his curious face. I wanted to save her. You'll never know how much I would have sacrificed to bring her back to you. But now, I'm just stealing all of what should be hers. I don't know what the right choice is. I don't know if there is a right choice.
Her lack of answer seemed to be enough to Mark, his head lowered and his hand fell from her face.
"I…" he stumbled to speak, clearly choking on his words. "I'll help you pack some of your things then. We'll call your mom and have her come…"
You couldn't save Susan, but you can still save Mark.
Tellion didn't let him say anymore. Despite her fear, despite her guilt, she reached up with her shaking hands and placed them on Mark's face. Her actions caused him to look up questioningly at her.
"Susan, what…"
"I love you." Tellion blurted out, rising on her feet and pressing her lips to his.
It wasn't the same as it had been the first time. There was no shock of the unknown in this connection. There was only her own desire to connect herself to Mark. His body tensed, freezing up for an instant by the unexpected action of her kiss. Then it passed, and his arms wrapped around her, pulling Tellion into him as he kissed her back.
But even as she felt herself falling into this great and terrifying unknown, tears still trickled down the side of her face. From both joy and sadness.
Susan. If you can hear me now, please forgive me. Tellion thought. I tried so hard to deny it, but I can't anymore. I…I love Mark. I want to be with him, the way you were. I couldn't save you, and I'm eternally sorry for that. But I promise, I will be here to save Mark. I'll spend the rest of my life by his side to protect him. I just hope…you understand.
As the force of their kiss intensified, Tellion stopped thinking about Susan, her sorrow for taking over her life, her disgust for being what she truly was, and her fear of the danger she was placing them both in. She stopped thinking about anything. She just…surrendered herself to whatever it was that would come next. Just so long as she could be there with Mark.