Knox is gone. He is a memory, an ephemeral desire to be something good now crushed under the weight of the unbearable need to hurt. Mother, was this you? He is thinking, he is asking, he is praying but to no Goddess now, praying that he can find an answer. He hears that horrible, dying snap: that breath crawling out of a corpse like its legs are caught between the teeth, like it's seconds away from the syndrome of the crush.

Is this crush syndrome? Has he, too, been so long compressed and overtaken that he is rushing back into himself with guilt?

No, didn't this already happen, damnit?

How many times.... Manhattan leaps as she wonders, thrusting her body against Kieran's as an invisible, cloaked force, diverting the attack from Knox where he lies a helpless killer. He had tried to make it quick, is this quick? Is it painful? He cannot stop the wondering. She can feel only the impact of her protection as the companion falls to lay across its bonded's back. How many times will I stand by you, when you kill so senselessly?

Neither of them know the answer.

Another one comes and Knox can do nothing. His body is against the body of the dead where it was before, his lips are parted and pressed to the bloodless earth. Was it better to blind her? Was it better to leave this earth unstained? Was she better off dead?

Was anything better, could it ever be again?

He listens as the exchange occurs. He moves further from the body. Knox senses now that he has defiled it, harmed it, in a way he should not have done. He doesn't remember how he got here, on the ground, beside this corpse. Dovev is gone, it is only his thoughts in an imposter body. Now that he is himself at last, he doesn't know who he is anymore.

They are screaming. Everyone is screaming. The ancestors, Manhattan, this child, this daughter of the dead. Knox knows he has done something he should not have but he doesn't know what. He hears the voices he heard as a child, creeping in, little demons, never gone. Did you think we'd ever let you go, pathetic colt?

"I'm sorry!"

He is crying. He is speaking aloud but he doesn't know to whom. Knox's young, fragile fears are breaking through the hard exterior of the steel killer. "I thought.... she was dying, I thought I..." Dark eyes stream with tears and look to the surviving one, the one with the horn in her lips and the fire in her eyes, the companion with the fire at it's back. "I was trying to end her pain.... I.... I'm sorry, oh, Gods, I'm so sorry...." every word spoken in tears, ever word spoken through hurt.

Manhattan draws to his side, moving slow from her collision with the cat, cloaked and unseen by all. She presses her black hair against Knox. She doesn't feel the hate for him, anymore. She thinks it is only pity, now.

What have I done, dear Hatta?

There isn't anything to tell him but the truth--this, she cannot say. So she presses her cheek to his, his swollen tears striking the bridge of her nose as she listens, eyes shut, to his shivering cry. It is the touch that says I love you--the touch that says I'm sorry I couldn't save you, Knox.


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[[@[Vitani]]]