Saying Goodbye, Part III

Posted on Mon Jan 9th, 2023 @ 5:54am by First Lieutenant Bethany Harrison

Mission: The Mutant Underground
Location: Underground Base
Timeline: Present Day

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Content Warning! Some Adult Themes.

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You used to captivate me by your resonating light
Now I’m bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts, my once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away, all the sanity in me
These wounds won’t seem to heal, this pain is just too real
There’s just too much that time cannot erase.

~Evanescence, My Immortal

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When she woke up, she was more than a little surprised. When she found out why she woke up, she was absolutely furious. Dyami had bound her soul to Jon’s. It had saved her life, which she wasn’t really thankful for in the grand scheme of things, and it had also bound her to a man that she was going to lose to another woman. The link was strong and painful. She felt everything he was feeling, which included his feelings for Cecily.

After a few days of being locked down, Bethany had agreed to the nano-armor, and then she decided that she couldn’t stay. She didn’t mesh well with the others, or with the setting, and now that Jon and Cecily would be staying because of Xander, she saw no reason to stick around.

“I’m joining the Underground,” Bethany said, not able to look Jon in the eyes. He wasn’t the only reason that she was leaving, but he was the biggest.

“Why, luv?” Jon asked, shaking his head. “You could have a good life here.”

“I have no life here. I don’t fit,” Bethany said, giving a brief shrug. “I never have, and you know that. Besides, I’m a soldier. I fight.”

“But why does it have to be you, luv?” he asked, giving a heavy sigh. “You could learn anything here. Let someone else fight for now.”

“And who’s brother or sister is supposed to die in my place?” she asked back, shaking her head. “Maybe Xander? Cece? No. I didn’t almost die just to see them go down. All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy. You can do that now. That’s all that matters.”

“I want you to be happy too, luv,” Jon said, grabbing Beth by the arms, giving her a pleading look. “You don’t have to leave.”

“Being happy has never really been in the cards for me,” she said, her voice devoid of emotion, her green gaze flat, cold.

Jon drew her in and hugged her tightly. “Please don’t do this. Just stay. Things will get better, luv.”

“I’ve made up my mind,” Bethany responded, returning the hug that Jon had enfolded her in. She enjoyed the feeling of being in his arms one last time, choking down the tears that wanted to fall. She had learned over her time with Jon exactly why her mother had stayed with the Preacher for all of those years. Love made no sense. Her father had been right. Love was nothing more than a weakness that could be used against you.

“I love you, Beth,” Jon said, his voice soft, sad.

“And I’ll love you until time ends,” the young woman admitted sadly.

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When Bethany left for the Underground, Jon spent two weeks lashing out at her emotionally through their new bond. She didn’t think he was really doing it on purpose, as neither of them had any experience with any kind of bond, but feeling everything that he did hurt her beyond belief. She eventually shut down her end of the connection, burying it along with all of the other things that caused her pain or grief.

It was fuel for her training, as each day she silently hoped that Dyami wouldn’t be able to bring her back. Then she’d kick herself, because if she died, Jon would die, so she didn’t want that, either. The only way that she’d been able to fight back against the pain of being separated from literally half of her soul, was to stay in a constant state of combat readiness. Cold, calculating, essentially dead inside, the feeling of having her bones broken regularly still couldn’t compare to the emotional agony that she was trying to deal with silently.

Another month went by, and while she was starting to get used to living in a constant state of emotional denial, she was getting used to the routine around the ranch. She had had to beat her way into the hierarchy against a few of the boys that got froggy, but after that, things had settled down.

Then she showed up out of nowhere. After attempting to break a horse, she was thrown and when she rolled up to a stop against the fence, Cecily was standing there next to Nina, Dyami’s niece and one of the counselors.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Bethany said as she knocked the dust from her leathers and climbed over the fence.

The pretty blonde signed something and Nina translated for her. “I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

Bethany sighed heavily and shrugged. “Not sure what you’d need to talk to me about.”

“It’s Jon. He started drinking again,” Nina translated, arching an eyebrow slightly. She had seen the damage a drunk could do over and over again, as children showed up to the ranch.

Bethany shrugged. “I know. What am I supposed to do about it?” she asked coldly.

Cecily paled a bit and pulled her sleeves up slightly, revealing bruises. “He’s getting violent. He won’t listen to me. I don’t know how to make him listen.”

“Have you tried punching him in the mouth?” Bethany asked, bright, dangerous colors rolling across her face as she saw the bruises.

Cecily blushed and shook her head.

“Why come to me? You’re the one that he’s in love with, what makes you think he’ll listen to me?” The green-eyed brawler shook her head, then sighed heavily again.

“Because this all started when you left,” Cecily signed, Nina dutifully translating. “He gets drunk, gets mean, then passes out and calls out for you in terror in his sleep because he can’t find you.” The blonde young woman sighed sadly and frowned.

“I left so that he could move on with the life that he wanted with you,” Bethany said, seeming confused as to why Cecily would even seek her out. “He should be happy.”

Again, Cecily gave her a sad, silent frown.

“Fine. Nina, can you tell Dyami that I need to go back to the academy? Someone needs to punch that man in the mouth, and if no one else is going to do it, I will.” Bethany really had no pity for alcoholics, especially violent drunks, considering the fact that her father had been one, as well as most of the men at the commune.

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When Cecily opened Jon’s door, Bethany stopped her. “I don’t want him lashing out at you. Just stay here,” she said, then stepped inside the icy cold room, closing the door behind her.

The room was nearly dark, which might have been a problem for some, but the light-bearer’s vision adjusted with what little light was available. What she found was a number of empty alcohol bottles strewn about his front room, which doubled as the bedroom in the small apartment. The stench rising from them made her gag a bit, and she kicked some kind of to-go container out of the way.

“What the hell are you doing here? I thought you left,” came a gruff, drunken voice from a chair in front of the television that was playing one of the old movies that he loved so much.

“Well at least you’re still conscious enough to notice when someone walks into your room,” Bethany said, moving over towards him, picking her way over old food, dirty clothes, and more alcohol bottles. She noticed that his state of the art prosthetic leg had been tossed into a corner.

“Just go away. You don’t belong here with me anymore,” Jon slurred, flinging the nearly empty bottle of scotch in his hand at her after taking a long pull from it. “Remember?”

“Don’t you dare try to blame me for this,” Bethany said, trying to control the anger in her tone as she side-stepped the sloppily thrown bottle, and it shattered against the wall. She stepped in front of the television, making him look at her. “You’re the one that wanted to be with Cecily, you chose to be with her, and now you’re getting drunk and hurting her? That is not my fault!”

“You said you loved me, but you ran away when I needed you the most!” Jon shouted, standing up from his chair with a surprising celerity and stability considering how drunk that he was, and that he was on one leg.

“I do love you! That’s why I left! I wanted you to be happy! What, I’m just supposed to sit around and watch you move on with your life with another woman? What the hell do you need me around for? Just to shove it in my face that you’re happier with someone else?” Bethany shouted back, losing her grip on her anger.

Jon lunged at her, but lost his balance and wound up falling into her, grabbing her by the shoulders as he steadied himself. “Just get out! You don’t want to be here, so leave me alone!” he screamed in her face.

She had almost hurt him then. A flash of her father attacking her nearly robbed her of her breath and reason, but she managed to extricate herself from his grip and backed away from him, gasping for air, knocking the tv down in the process.

Jon’s head tilted and he gave her an evil grin as he held himself up on the wall. “What? Was it daddy this time?” he goaded her, knowing that familiar instant PTSD slip from reality that he had caught in her eyes. Laughing, he continued, “Talk about a girl with some serious daddy issues! So is that the reason you’re in love with a worthless old drunk like me?”

The hair stood up on the back of Bethany’s neck, as the predator in Jon spoke up. The monster that he kept well hidden most of the time, sneaking into the mix. “I never asked for this, Jon,” she said sadly, keeping some distance between them. “I was ready to die. You should have just let me die.”

That seemed to infuriate Jon even further and he pushed himself off of the wall, hopping at her angrily. “Do you really think that I wanted to live in a world without you in it?” he screamed, his face going red.

Bethany backed up as Jon moved towards her, but only managed to back into a wall in the unfamiliar room, leaving him right up against her, holding himself up with his hands on either side of her head. “You’re not making any sense. You chose her! You were going to leave with her until Xander popped powers! I didn’t matter at all then, why do I suddenly matter now? You love her, you’re with her, what the hell is your problem?”

Jon reared back and punched the wall next to Bethany’s head. “I love you! Damn it, don’t you know that?”

Bethany never even flinched when he reared back. He had never struck her in anger and she didn’t even expect that of him at that moment. She was also completely frozen in shock. “You love Cece. You chose her. You can’t do this to me, Jon. You’re killing me.”

“You gave my life meaning again, Beth,” Jon said, momentarily drawing back to reach up and gently stroke her cheek, to look into her eyes. “You gave me purpose. I don’t even want to imagine my world without you.”

With that, he kissed her. It was rough and hungry, his hand moving into her thick hair, closing on it tightly. What happened from there had been furious and fantastic, terrifying and terrific, all at the same time. When it was over, they had broken Cecily’s heart and made an enemy of her brother.

What they hadn’t known at the time, was that Cece’s powers had given her a precog vision of them together, and she had sought Bethany out to force that to happen, even knowing that it meant losing Jon. She had seen how miserable that he was without Bethany, and that had already caused her so much pain. To see the fruition of her vision didn’t make that loss any less painful for her, however.

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TBC
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