Holy shit, I didnt even notice we've now passed the 150k word mark for this story! Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me along the journey so far, from those leaving comments (thank you!) to those who prefer more private convos on twitter and discord, and everyone who subscribes, and those who have not yet left a comment but enjoy reading it all the same. I really appreciate all of you!

From the last chapter, thank you so much to , Emma, Nora, Natsuki Sawada, and Ellis Tobias for your amazing comments and completely making my day!

This story is really far from over. I am maybe halfway through my overall plan, so rest assured there is still a lot to look forward to!

Now, I believe I left off with the promise of a confession... welp. Enjoy! (and please dont hate me)

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"Do you… love me?"

Damian's heart stopped. A final beat that sent a pulse of pain through his entire body, and in its wake, was a clarity that pinned him to the spot.

He could deny it. He had denied it a thousand times before. He had denied it to his friends, to his classmates - he had even denied it to himself for years, but, Damian knew that he had been given a miraculous chance to confess, to finally tell her what had been in his heart this whole time, and even though he had never been more terrified, he also knew that he wanted his pain to end.

Beautiful emerald eyes gazed up at him, wide open, as if seeing him for the first time, and Damian's entire brain turned to static as he blurted just three words:

"You didn't know?"

Anya's face paled, completely taken aback. "What?" She exclaimed. "How would I-"

She stopped, and understanding lit up her eyes. "Oh. Ohhhhh."

He was afraid to remember the sheer number of times that he thought about her, how she smelled, how she looked, how much he would like to take her on dates, or how hard he had fallen for her… Damian met Anya's eyes once more, and immediately his stare was drawn to the way that she tugged nervously on her sleeves, the way her eyes widened as she continued to stare at him.

He pressed his lips together in a pained smile, barely suppressing the anguished turmoil within him. "Is it really that bad?"

Normally so open with her reactions, Damian suddenly found that he couldn't tell what she was thinking or feeling at all. She quickly looked away and bit her lip, and that could have meant anything, but to Damian, she was unreadable.

Even though he wanted nothing more than to run away, save himself from her inevitable rejection, his feet had also rooted to the ground, and at that moment in time, there was nothing more important to him in the world than hearing her answer. So when she finally geared up to return her gaze back to him, Damian stopped breathing at the sight of her eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

"Even…" She croaked. "Even after…?" She covered her mouth with a sob.

Images of her time in the lab filled his mind, and Damian ached at the realisation of what she was trying to say. In a hoarse voice, he asked: "Even after everything that happened?"

She nodded.

Damian swallowed thickly. It was now or never.

"Yes. I do."

He had said the words - the actual words - out loud once before, but he had always imagined that when the time came for real, that he could muster up the courage to confess properly. Damian resigned himself to the fact that, with the words stuck in his throat, this was all going very differently to what he had imagined.

He had already told her how brave he thought she was, that she was so much braver than him, and that was an indisputable fact. At that moment, Damian summoned all of the courage in his teenage body, and reached for her hands, bridging the gap between them.

He marvelled at the softness of her hands. How she had let him hold them so many times before, and yet never as intimately as this. On instinct, Damian folded their fingers together, half-expecting that she would pull away from him at any second.

A fragile air hung between them, and Damian wanted more than anything to stay like that forever. He searched her face, hoping for a sign of reciprocation, but Anya's shock had frozen her in place. He wondered if her eyes had ever been wider.

The whole time, she didn't look away.

He wanted to tell her. The words were right there in his heart, at the forefront of his mind, the words he had wanted to tell her for so long, but he couldn't reach them over the cacophony of panic and fear that echoed from the depths of his soul.

Blocked by his own ineptitude, something else poured out of him. "I meant what I said back in the nurse's office, but I'm sorry that I can't say it out loud right now... I've thought about it a lot, and I know that there are parts of your past that I might not ever fully know or understand, but everything that happened in the last few weeks doesn't change how I feel…" He steadied himself with a shaky breath. "How I've always felt."

At that, Anya sucked in a startled breath, and the tear that wobbled in the corner of her eye finally fell, but she made no effort to wipe it away. Damian's heart clenched painfully, like someone had reached inside his chest and grabbed it with their bare hand, but even with the invisible grip on him, he pushed forward.

He said it. Okay. So it was happening. It was really happening.

He tried not to panic. As much as Damian had always wanted to confess to her, especially over the last few days, it was far more terrifying than he ever thought it would be, but he had been given a once in a lifetime chance. He had to take it with both hands before he lost his nerve.

"Look," Damian fought the tremor in his voice as his thumb grazed hers. "You don't… you don't have to give me an answer right now or anything…"

He had no idea what he was supposed to say next, but he couldn't betray the question resonating from his heart.

Do you feel the same?

Anya was caught between staring numbly at their entwined fingers, and gazing into his perfect, golden eyes.

How many times had Damian's face crossed her mind, only for her to shake him out of her thoughts? How many times did she shut Becky down, or ignore her outright when she started to talk about him in that way? How many times did she use Operation Strix as her excuse to get closer to him?

It crossed her mind, then, that she had never even let herself think of Damian like that. She squashed every thought down as soon as it bubbled up. She stamped out every inkling of a feeling, choosing to ignore them.

After all, she always had other things to worry about. Worries that hadn't gone away.

"I…" Her voice caught. "I don't know."

With her gaze lowered, she didn't miss it when he flinched, and when she lifted her head up to look at him, to see him, it was impossible not to see his stricken expression. Like an arrow had struck his heart.

A sharp pain sliced through her chest, and she gasped aloud.

Is this… his emotion? Is this what he feels?

"I'm sorry, Damian," Anya blurted earnestly. "It's just, it's all so sudden-"

For a moment, Damian tightened his hold on Anya's hands with a sharp intake of breath, before he let her go. Very gently, he extricated himself from her, and stepped back.

"It's okay," he said tightly. "Just… Let me know when you've figured it out."

One step back, and then another. Damian's feet dragged on the ground, and neither could quite tear their gaze away from the other.

But it was Damian that turned away first.

Anya stood rooted to the spot as she watched Damian walk back into the building alone, and her heart pounded in her chest. Alone with her thoughts, she tried to process everything that had just happened.

She had confronted her father, and asked him to allow her to step away from the friendship scheme, which he granted, albeit very reluctantly.

Damian had heard their confrontation - and completely misunderstood it. (He thought she was pregnant, for crying out loud! It couldn't really get more embarrassing than that.) Heat rushed through her and she had no doubt that the blush was obvious on her face.

But he didn't dwell on what he had heard - which was a relief - because he was too busy telling her that he loved her, and just that simple truth was enough to paralyse her completely.

Becky was right about Damian, Anya realised. She was right the whole time.

It was a while before Anya eventually returned to the room, where she found Alice and Charlotte already asleep, while Becky's bed was suspiciously empty. Anya wondered if she had snuck off with Bill, which was a shame, because she could have really used some best-friend expertise right then.

More than anything, Anya needed to know why she was so distraught: why the knowledge that he loved her burned through her entire body, and turned her soul to cinders, why his undeniable love tortured her and twisted her up inside.

Anya had never before felt so impotent. The one thing that she needed more of was time, time to think, and decide for herself, and she needed much more than just one night of sleep.

Similarly, Damian could not bring it in himself to face his friends. Not for a while. He decided to take a long walk around the grounds to cool off and calm his racing heart.

The last time they had seen him, he stomped off in a huff declaring that he would go and confess to Anya, and he dreaded telling them what had actually transpired. Damian would rather die than admit that he had finally confessed his feelings to Anya Forger - and she didn't feel the same. It was his worst fear realised, and not one that he particularly wanted to relive with anyone, never mind his closest friends.

Anya had tried to be kind, and she had let him down gently. She had said "I don't know", but she didn't exactly look thrilled. If she really did love him back, then why wouldn't she say? To Damian, the answer was obvious: through their entire Eden career, Anya had expressed interest in being friends with Damian - but only friends. When they were younger, she would do any manner of crazy things to get his attention, to go to his house, to get his number (he tried to forget about that fiasco), but as they got older, her crazy attempts at formalising their friendship were few and far between, until that one week where she just ignored him altogether, and it nearly drove him mad.

Deep in Damian's heart, he knew that his love was unrequited, and it utterly crushed him.

Walking around the grounds at night did little to ease his disappointment. The hand that had reached directly into his chest squeezed his heart so hard, that he feared he might stop breathing, or go into cardiac arrest, or both. But as the night air chilled him, and he started to see his breath billowing in the air around him, Damian conceded that it was time to go back to the room and wait for the dawn. He didn't know if he had the strength to face the next day.