A/N: My first 3Below fic I'll be posting. I have another one coming up.

WARNING: This story contains graphic depictions of violence.

"Aja, it'll be alright," Krel soothed as he gripped her chin and ran the washcloth over her right cheek, blood smearing on the cream colored fabric.

She barely heard him, just stared straight ahead, tense, hugging her knees to her chest. Droplets plashed around her, and she felt that the water was warm, but it was as if the details of her reality didn't matter. Here she was, in their bathtub, her little brother cleaning blood off of her.

Steve's blood, and the black of those who'd attacked them.

She'd been on a date with Steve, a human date, and on their way to the Kissing Tree they'd been ambushed by bounty hunters. They hadn't been part of the Zeron Brotherhood; Aja had no idea whose allegiance they pledged, but it must've been a planet on the far reaches of the galaxy. She hadn't recognized them and their kind, and there'd been three.

Steve had known of her secret by then, had known who she really was, but she hadn't wanted to get him so heavily involved. She'd done what she could with her serrator, but without her transduction wearing off, she'd been down two arms that could've helped her.

The first bounty hunter had been killed, a biological being that oozed a heavy oily blood instead of the bright blue of Akiridions, and then the second one had grabbed Aja by the neck. She'd struggled… until she saw the third one had Steve. Her boyfriend had been pinned against the tree, a large, scaly hand against his throat, the tip of the bounty hunter's cruel, serrated weapon digging into his stomach. There had been a dark spot spreading out on his blue shirt, and he'd cried out.

"Aja! Aja, don't let him—" the bounty hunter had growled at Steve's words, and he'd corrected himself, "Her?" Another growl, blade pressing in more, and he'd whined, gripping hard at the hand around his throat. "Them, them! Don't let them kill me! I don't wanna die. Please, I don't wanna die."

"Surrender yourself or we kill the boy," the bounty hunter holding her tight had hissed in her ear.

Aja had looked into Steve's eyes, and she'd thought of what his life was like, his relationship with Coach, and Eli, his resilient spirit. But in her mind's eye she'd seen Krel, her little brother.

What would he have done if she'd never come home?

"I'm sorry, Steve," she'd whispered, mostly to herself, and then she'd made her move.

Willing her serrator into a blaster, she'd killed the bounty hunter that held her fast, but she wasn't quick enough to save Steve. A choked scream had met her ears, Aja had thrown her serrator, successfully getting them in between the shoulder blades. Black liquid had spurted out onto her boyfriend, who was falling to the ground. He'd done the stupid thing and pulled the blade free. It'd punctured him at the hip.

Aja had used her hoverboard to get him to a hospital, but seeing as she wasn't a family member she hadn't been allowed to stay with him.

He would be okay, as okay as someone could be once they'd gotten stabbed, but his blood still stained her hands. Somehow it'd gotten on her face, in her hair, and her clothes were ruined.

The black blood didn't bother her. In fact, she was glad she'd spilled some that night, that it was on her.

But the bright crimson…

She inhaled deeply, breath shaky, and Krel dipped the cloth into the tub before rubbing harshly at her jaw. Some of the blood was already dried, sticking to her.

"Steve will be fine," he told her. "Human doctors are taking care of him. They'll know what to do."

Aja clenched her jaw, tilting her head down and away. He continued cleaning her.

It didn't matter to them that she without clothing — he was the person she was closest to in the entire universe. And it wasn't even her actual body that he was cleaning now, just the human version of herself that part of her had grown to love, that she knew her friends loved.

And Steve loved her either way.

The water was turning an ugly brown color, the two types of blood mixing together.

"But what if he's not?" Aja asked, finally speaking, sharing her worries. Krel scrubbed at some blood on her collarbone, and Aja leaned back for him to make his work easier. "These weak bodies can be permanently damaged. What if… What if he's not alright?" She met the deep brown eyes of her little brother, and he gave her a sympathetic look, corners of his lips turning down, tears in his eyes. He didn't have any answers for her.

"What if he blames me?" she went on.

"The Palchuk may be a soolian, but even he has the brain cells to not do that."

Neither of them had told Varvatos Vex of this yet, so they were all alone, and Aja felt it was alright to cry. With her guardian away at the Domzalski house, probably gloriously defeating his enemies in chess, she felt very small.

She was the fighter. Not Krel.

And here she was, unable to even clean herself, stunned, staring at the filthy water when she wasn't busy staring at the red on her skin.

It'd come from Steve.

Steve was hurt.

"Would you like me to tell Varvatos for you?"

"I don't want to tell him," she responded quietly, tears trailing down her face. She was encased in shame, and guilt, and fear, nothing a warrior should be feeling.

"He will have to know. He will know eventually."

Aja didn't speak her mind, hoping that if she didn't tell him then it wouldn't have happened, that she wasn't there in that bathtub, that Steve wasn't lying in a hospital bed.

One more step to accepting it would make it more real.

How could it be real?

Bounty hunters were a part of her life now, but not a part of Steve's. No. No human should be part of her life in such a way.

But they were. Steve was.

Aja had wanted to have both worlds inside her, to be an Akiridion with Steve, on Earth, but to be with her human friends, to go to school with them, to walk amongst them, and to keep her own life private, to keep Akiridion matters as that: Akiridion.

They'd made their way to Earth, gotten into her life here, had damaged someone very important to her.

Aja had been foolish to think she could have both without violence following.

She was the queen-in-waiting, on the run from Morando, hiding out on this mudball with bounty hunters after her.

Violence was her life now.

Which was why she'd wanted to train, why she wanted to know how to fight.

But all her skills and prowess hadn't stopped her life from being invaded, infiltrated by the violence that ate her. She'd felt stronger as a warrior, unstoppable.

As Krel ran the washcloth slowly over her back, continuing to say soothing things to her, and blood ran down her skin, some of it still visible in her hair out of the corner of her eye, she realized she wasn't unstoppable.

Aja was just a girl, one small being in the grand scheme of a violent universe. She couldn't protect Steve, and she hadn't been able to protect Mama and Papa.

Aja wasn't even certain she could protect herself.

In that bathtub, she didn't feel like a queen-in-waiting, didn't feel like a warrior.

She was Aja. Just Aja.