"But you will pull the pin from the grenade," she reassures him, not without her own sort of cool kindness. She needs him to know that they are enemies, that no matter what else he may tell her or claim to feel for her, they will one day stand against each other.
"Your very presence here, your coming to Purgatory at all, is a spark. We have worked too long and too hard to see it ruined by you."
Apadiel does not want a war, but she is not afraid to fight in one again. Real, pure peace is something she will never know again, but she can make herself powerful enough to have time, luxury, and calm around her, and that will have to be close enough. She will do battle to keep what she has made, but it would not wound her pride or ruin her plans if Apollo and all those like him were to simply take wing and leave Purgatory, return home and say what they would.
Say that the city is lost to Lucifer and that those souls that are trapped there will never be recovered.
Say that they were bested in battle, lost too many to be able to declare a victory, and must retreat in order to regroup and return at some distant, future time.
Say that they loved too much, were too weak to raise their weapons against their brothers and sisters, those angels that are already once wounded.
But that will never happen. These Arcs, those angels that are here, they have been sent to fulfill a purpose, and will not be allowed to return until it is completed. And if they die here, they will never see their home again.
Apadiel wants to snap at him when he asks how she is. It’s a foolish, naive question. Does he expect her to roll over for him, expose her underbelly, tell him of her misery?
But she knows he doesn’t. Apollo is still so new, so horribly honest that she wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he sees. Do not believe in people so completely! Do not trust everyone! It will kill you faster than this sickness that eats at you.
"I am not happy." Quiet, lowered eyes, he gets this one confession from her, because she will not stoop to lying. "I have not been happy in a long time. I will be happy when you all leave."
She is not pleased to hear that he is afraid, but there is a relief that she feels, to know that he is learning, that he is at least beginning to see the reality of the city, of the conflict, of what their Father has sent him to do. Again. Cut down those rebels angels, free humanity, betray your brethren in deference to those lesser souls that He loves more.
But then Apollo continues to speak, and this time he goes too far with his soft words.
The sound of the words roars in her ears, and for a moment she thinks that she will lose her balance again, but this time she does not know if she will pitch backwards, away from Apollo, his glassy eyes and incredulous claims, or towards him and what end may come from believing him.
She can not - will not believe him when he tells her that he loves her. Apadiel searches his face for any sign of deception. She needs to read it in his expression, his stiff posture, the trembling of his hands and the shine of sweat on his skin, because she can not see far enough ahead to understand on her own. She can calculate, predict moves, see actions and consequences stretching far beyond this encounter, but none of them can account for his words.
Apadiel shakes her head and pulls her hand towards her body, afraid he will reach out and touch her. But contagion is no longer her greatest fear. Apollo is right; if he is infected with something doomed to kill them all, then it is already too late for her.
His words are something more insidious than a virus. He speaks without reason, with no motivation other than wanting her to know. He doesn’t even tell her what he would have her do with this information. So he loves her, but expects nothing in return?
No one expects nothing in return.
"If my returning it means so little, then why tell me of your love at all? So arrogant, even in death, that you think that this should matter to me.”
She shakes her head, lips pressed together to a thin line. Her anger is not flames, bright and brilliant, easily shifted, but instead she feels it like molten rock, her core turning slowly, shifting and glowing inside her. Apollo has touched on the oldest of her furies, this persistent, irrational idea that love is strength, that his telling her of his love is somehow something to be proud of.
Love will kill you, you fool.
"Just like all the others." She scolds him, because she had expected better of him, that he would be a proper tactician, not weighed down and moved by these emotions that will only blind him in the end. ”Why must you all persist in this deception that you are better than us? That your love is greater, that your blind obedience is a deeper display of loyalty than the sacrifices we made?”
Apadiel steps closer to him, leaning in and speaking in a harsh whisper. There is no comfort in this proximity; she has not moved towards him because she feels a pull, but because her words are meant for him and him alone. The physical distance may be lessened, but there is a wall between them now, and she must keep it in place.
"So you love me. I hope your sake that you are lying, because it will only prove to be your greatest weakness."
But you will pull the pin from the grenade, she says, and there is no anger, no hate, no hardness. It is breathlessly self evident, drifting on the tip of her tongue and exhaling without resistance, and he hesitates because it is true, but the tense is wrong. By his very arrival here, the last of the players in this game with only two conclusions, he has not set something in motion, that was already begun, but he has fanned the small sparks that had already smoldered and added his own light to their number. He is not ashamed in this, for he believes in himself and in his mission, but the words strike a blow all the same. It is not cruel, that she says it, but a reminder that there is a valley between them, and that they stand on opposite sides of the river, and that neither may cross over completely, for the waters that rage between them are treacherous and deep.
He daydreams in a way that they might have had something in Heaven to fall back upon, some easy rhythm, some familiarity to use as a touch stone, here, when everything is different, but she does not stand out in his memories of home. They might have caught flashes of each others’ lives, the messenger reluctantly but loyally training in rank, but he had been a different kind of thing, with different duties and different connections, not designed for the harsh eventualities of war. No, that was learned, through painful steps where each motion flared a vivid picture in his mind. It was a bad trait of a soldier, to feel too much of the opposition’s pain, and it was a bad trait of a soldier to think overmuch in the heat of battle. He had had to set those things aside as far as he was able, like a child’s playthings that had no relevance in this new and troubling life. He had been a beautiful soldier, righteous and pure, but he had been a deeply unhappy one. He wonders, looking at her, if he had glimpsed her on the battlefield in that time long ago. He does not remember.
Perhaps that was the greatest tragedy of all.
“Me,” he said softly, and his head tilted. “I think you overestimate the Arcs’ power. There’s merely seven of us, Apadiel, and one of them is like your leader. No one has seen Michael since we’ve gotten here, not that it matters. Seven. All we have the ability to do, is light a spark, as you said. It’s the humans that will choose whether they will rise against the Princes, or whether they will keep their lives here as they have them now. If they will not choose what we offer, there is nothing that we do. And you know that.” A smile touched his lips, but he was obviously in pain, his dark eyes full of it as he looked at her from those hollowed sockets. There was a far away light in their pupils, like mirrored reflection of starlight over still, black water.
“I think you’re counting on it.”
Her answer is truthful, and he wasn’t expecting that, taking it into him and letting it settle into silence. “I’m not happy too,” he says softly. “And I also won’t be happy until we leave. But we can’t. If we somehow get out of this alive and breathing, it’s not going to be for a long, long time.” His voice is quiet. “I didn’t want to come here, Apadiel. This wasn’t my decision. Nor am I blindly following orders. Now that I am here, I am going to do my best to give the humans here at least that first glimpse at what might be possible, if they want it. That’s all. And I won’t leave until one of your number shoots me, or we succeed.”
He shook his head slowly. “I don’t think it matters to you, “ he said quietly. “But it doesn’t hurt to say it anyway.” He smiled, tired. “Maybe it reminds me.” A soft laugh escaped him, shaking his head again. “Apadiel---really? When did I ever say that we were better? When did I ever think that we were better? Arcs. Princes. We’re all still angels. Same power. Same Grace. That’s the thing about love, is that it doesn’t have to be measured. Just because I’m here, doesn’t mean that I don’t think you had valid reasons or that there isn’t another side to this story. But I have to stay true to what I think is right.” He shrugged, and winced, the motion hurting him. “I almost think you think those things, that our love is greater, since you keep bringing it up, over and over again. I’ve never said it.”
He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t blink when she steps towards him, his eyes on her, his expression perhaps removed, a little sad, but devoid of anger, and devoid of fear. “If you do not have love,” he says softly. “What’s the point? Of all this?” His eyes move to Kelly, as if including him in the conversation. “Wealth? Safety? Security?”
He meets Apadiel’s eyes again. “I would rather be....weak...as you say, than without allowing myself to feel. And no matter what you do, you cannot make me hate you, don’t you understand?” His voice is a whisper. “There is nothing that you can do or could do to me, that would effect me or make me despair. If one day, we meet on a battlefield, and you manage to win, you will have my dead body but you will not have my obedience. Your victory will taste like ashes in your mouth, and even if it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter. You have not forced me to revoke the fact that I care about you, and you never will. I will have held onto that, even if you tear my heart from my chest. ”
“You. Have. No. Power. Over. Me.”
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