A/N: I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used here!

A special thanks to SensiblyTainted for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to Kin-outcast1, Comuterale, Genesblues, Parnussus, and halesgirl101 for reviewing!

See all ya'll in a week with the AU of Madhouse!

Epilogue: Healing

I've been running from something
Twenty years in the car
Down a road that's leading me nowhere
Yeah we drive through the farmlands
No-one knows where we're from
Could I kiss you and make you a queen?
Or something inbetween...

Do you want to see it?
The place where I am free
'Cause in my mind I need it
But you're nowhere near to me...
-"Twenty Years," Augustana

Three days.

It took Niko three days to wake back up and come out of it.

It wasn't the longest time I'd ever seen him stay gone. But it was just as heart-wrenching as ever, as horrible and depressing as the first time.

He didn't talk, not a word. He moved around Robin's apartment in a parody of life, doing what he should, doing what he was told, but without any purpose behind it. His face was blank, his eyes empty, and I had to watch him when he made tea or he'd burn his fingers because he couldn't feel it.

I was exhausted. Robin tried to help, but Robin didn't quite understand why I had to shadow Niko like a particularly determined sheepdog, tell him to sit down or to go eat something. He started to understand, though, when Niko blistered his thumb on the stove burner because he simply didn't know it was hot. I'd seen it and snatched him away before he could really, really hurt himself. That was the second day, and Niko had let me bandage his hand without a single word, without flinching or reacting. I could very well have cut it off or slit his throat, and he would have let me without protest or response.

God, I'd forgotten how exhausting it was, how disheartening.

That first night I hadn't thought about it. I'd barely been conscious enough, when we'd gotten to Robin's apartment, to get me and Niko both cleaned up. We'd lost a lot of blood, both of us, and between the gate and the driving fury of the hunt, I was drained to the dregs. I'd never have to wonder again about the phrase "bone deep weariness." Hell, I was still living it. I'd slept a little but it was riddled with nightmares, both mine and Niko's. He didn't talk, but at night he dreamed and kicked and fought and woke to press his face against my shoulder and cry without a sound. I didn't want to know what demons stalked him in his sleep. I didn't want to know what made him a prisoner in his own head.

All I wanted to know was how to make it better.

There was no magical instant cure. I knew it. Time was the answer, and waiting, and in the meantime we were both wearing down to the nubs. The bruising on Niko's face was faded to green and brown, but the dark circles under his eyes were from loss of sleep. I had a matching look. We were poster-kids for emo wannabes: pale skin and smudged eyes and no smiles in sight. I had a feeling Niko probably needed a blood transfusion, because he would come damn near to passing out if he stood too long. I had to keep making him go sit, please sit, Niko, will you goddamn sit down already?

And he'd go, drift along and fold himself silently up in a seat, and even if I was pissed I couldn't help but go sit with him.

I needed him, and he was gone.

But he needed me, so I was there.

Robin tried to help. He did. But as attentive and careful and smart as he was, I could tell he'd never dealt with this before.

Somewhere around the third morning, we started shouting and I started crying and it was just a mess. Just a goddamn sorry mess, and I knew I needed a break. I left Niko with Robin and went for a walk, because if Robin and I started yelling at eachother again, I didn't know who I was going to shank; him or me.

I went for a walk, and hoped it'd clear my head from the stuffy panic and anxiety and biting digging aching concern for Niko.

It didn't exactly work, but by the time lunch rolled around, I was sitting in a park bench a few blocks away and deciding I was too tired to even feel anything. I stared blind at the crowds a few feet away, and wondered how they could keep on smiling when I felt like shit and Niko was blanked out. It didn't seem fair.

But then, life's not fair.

And I knew that, I did.

But I also knew I was sick and tired of it not being fair. Niko...he didn't deserve this.

I rubbed my face with tired fingers and told myself I needed to get up off the bench. Go back and watch Niko, take care of him. Go back and try to get some sleep. Go back and apologize to Robin for exploding on him in a mess of trigger-happy emotions.

I told myself that, but I still sat there, feeling like lead.

Christ, I was so tired.

That first day, I think Robin expected Niko to come snapping back out of it, like he had after Everything. That had not been the norm, that instant kind of response. Whatever Hob had done to get Niko, it had sent Niko deep into his own mind, and he'd locked the doors behind him. Sometimes, I could see him under it all making an effort to get back out. Yesterday I thought he'd whispered to me, called my name. Today I was pretty sure I'd just imagined it. The idea that he might stay this way for a week or more made tears sting in my eyes. God, I just...I just wanted him to come back and be okay. That was all I ever wanted, when he was like this.

Lack of sleep wasn't the only thing making me weirdly weepy.

The gating thing hadn't hurt at the time, but now I had a tiny perma-headache, or at least one that had been there for all three days. My vision was off, too...colours weren't right, just a little, almost like they were washed-out. I hoped I hadn't permanently damaged my brain from gating.

Yeah, needles in your brain really just weren't fun.

It was what it felt like.

The second day, it hadn't been so bad, but then, I'd managed to get in a nap for most of yesterday. Today, in the bright hot sunshine, it felt like someone was stabbing me in the head. Repeatedly.

I rubbed at my eyes, pressing against them, but it didn't help.

Robin had said we could stay with him as long as Niko was not okay. I don't think he had expected it to take long. Tough break. I didn't know how long it would be. I'd move us out, except I didn't want to try to keep Niko in a hotel room, where it was just me and no help. I wanted to get us that damn fire station and finish our deal with the Mafia, but I didn't know how Niko had been in contact with them to start with and I didn't want to step into a legal loophole without his guidance. So the Calabassa stayed in my duffelbag, and we stayed at Robin's, and I thought to myself that it'd be a miracle if nobody ended up stabbed during all this.

Yesterday Niko had nearly stabbed me, and not even for any real reason, just because I'd been careless with sleep and temper. I'd shaken him out of another nightmare and he'd come out with the blade he kept under his pillow. Even like this, Niko wasn't helpless; he carried his dagger everywhere, and I'd warned Robin not to startle him.

I needed to go back and make sure they were okay.

I wasn't sure I could get up. Inertia. Damn fine scientific principle.

This morning hadn't started out too bad, considering I'd been up and awake since one, and hadn't gone to bed until twelve, but shit, I was fast friends with insomnia. Niko had slept more but he always did.

Robin...I didn't know Robin's sleeping habits, but since I'd found him in the kitchen with a half-empty bottle of whiskey at two this morning, I kinda suspected he wasn't getting a lot of sleep these days either.

Breakfast had been fine, Niko hadn't scalded himself with his tea, I'd been okay, then Robin had started asking about why I was herding Niko around the apartment. I forget how we started biting eachother about shortcomings and poor battle tactics and inability to predict Hob, but we had and it had really just been too much. Robin hadn't raised a hand but he'd raised his voice and I'd just come out in tears so loudly and hard that I'd surprised us both

And I'd walked and walked, because I could walk for miles on end in this city and blend with the crowds and forget I was being myself for a little while.

Except I couldn't escape it entirely.

So here I sat, tired and aching and too hot in my long sleeves and jacket. The wound on my back stung and burned as sweat trickled into it. I didn't particularly care. It was annoying but it could stay that way. I rubbed my face again and sat with my fingers against my forehead, staring blankly at the faded grass. It was like...like the sun was on too bright and colours were bleached, like an old photograph or a really hot midsummer day. My head hurt in short, sharp stabs and I decided I'd probably given myself a brain aneurysm and was going to just up and die. That would be lovely. A nice ending for a monster like me.

Because I was a monster. I wasn't an Auphe, no, I was Aupheling. It was what Abbagor had called me and I'd decided it was a damn good name for me. My own kind of monster, like the Auphe were but lesser. I knew them, knew their love of the hunt and the taste of the kill, but I was not the same. I had morals and principles. I had Niko. I wasn't Auphe entirely.

So. Aupheling it was. I had a feeling Niko would like it.

I couldn't wait to tell him, and watch him smile that stupid smug smirk.

Fucking hell, did I miss that smirk.

He'd probably smirk just like that when I told him that Flay, in a stunning act of indecency, had stolen robin's friend's RV. Simply driven off with it, and left a note in Robin's temporarily-stolen van that 'Was for Slay.' Robin had been incensed, but I was fairly certain it was only because he'd been outfoxed by a Wolf. Flay had dropped us and Robin off first, then delivered George to her home, safe and sound.

I'd only heard that. Robin had told me. I hadn't asked.

I didn't really want to know, because admitting I did suggested I might have a right to know, and I didn't.

I damn sure didn't.

It had...sure I'd wanted to rescue her, because no-one should be kidnapped or used or hurt, especially not girls like her, but I'd tried to the same. I'd tried to do worse. And in the end, Niko's need for rescue had eclipsed hers, in my mind. Her saving had been wholly second to Niko's, and I hadn't cared about her. That...I was pretty sure that if I'd really cared about her, I wouldn't have forgotten her. I felt guilty for doing that. Hell, she made me feel guilty all over and in fifty different damn ways.

I lowered my hands and rubbed at the scar on my left palm, the burn scar Niko had put there, the one hidden under gauze still.

"Not your fault."

For a moment I didn't even realize the words hadn't come from my own head.

Then I looked up into George's face.

Her dark eyes were solemn, her scarred face young and still. Her hair was bright, bright red and burned my eyes. I couldn't speak, couldn't move; haloed by the sun, she looked like an oracle, an empress, a goddess, a queen. She wore a sleeveless cream blouse and a dark brown calico skirt patterned with tiny red rosebuds. Her slim brown arms were bare of jewelry, her nails painted scarlet.

"He was right about that," she said, softly, her voice sweet, the scars stretched tight as she talked. "He was wrong to hurt you, but he was right when he said that it wasn't your fault. None of this was, Caliban. You shouldn't feel guilty."

She was wrong. I should. I didn't...she'd suffered at my hands, and she'd suffered again under a monster who'd stolen her, and I hadn't come to save her at all, only my brother.

"Caliban. You did save me. And I...I did want to blame you. I did want to hate you. My sister, she'll never be the same, and me..." She lifted her skirt. She had braces on her legs. I'd gashed her thighs open, torn muscle and fat and tendon. God, oh God. "I wanted to! But I can't. I can't, Caliban, because I can't blame you for what wasn't your fault."

I was staring at her in horror. I couldn't even breathe, and her words battered at my ears like rocks. I could barely understand what she was saying...what she was trying to tell me.

"It wasn't your fault, and it never was. I can't hate you for it. And you saved me. You came and you saved me. I can't do the same, Caliban, I can't bring you out of the monster's lair you've decided to live in. I know I can't take you away from Niko, even if I want to." She paused, and swallowed. There were tears on her face, catching in the raised edges of the scars on her cheeks. "I can't save you, but I can set you free."

She leaned forward, and her hands cupped my face. I closed my eyes, breath like a sob in my throat. She kissed me on the forehead, her breath sweet with mint and chocolate, her smell like gold and cherries and chocolate, cool and sweet.

"Caliban, I forgive you. It was never your fault."

I didn't cry - I wept.

She stood before me in all her grace and beauty, a queen like no other in this world.

It was the kind of grieving that I didn't know I had in me, and it was as unstoppable as a force of nature. Once I started I couldn't stop, and I didn't know if it was guilt or relief or panic or all three. Great whole-body sobs and tears and my nose was running something terrible; it was ragged, ugly. I didn't know how long it lasted; an eternity, five minutes, thirty minutes. It was timeless. But when it was over and I was done, I felt clear. Calm and quiet and ready to stand up again.

George stood there the whole time, and she smiled at me when I lifted my face, smeared with salt and snot. Her smile was pulled crooked, marred by the scars forever. "My family...they want to move. This...may be the last time I see you, Caliban."

Oh.

Understandable. She'd been through so much.

I didn't think I could talk, voice stripped raw from crying.

She touched my face again, tenderly. There was no anger, no reproach. Nothing but kindness. "Thank you. For saving me. You're a light in the darkness, Caliban, a light for those who know you. And remember...I forgive you."

She turned and walked away into the crowd, head held tall, back straight.

I watched her be swallowed by the anonymous faces, and tasted tears on my lips, and felt...

I felt...

...freed.

I stood up, and I went back to Robin's apartment. I was almost afraid to think of anything, in case I'd...I dunno, scare away the peace that George had left me with. It was lingering, and I liked it. I needed it, the calm and the quiet in my own head. I could do this. If George could forgive me for all I'd done to her, with a strength I could never hope to match...I could go and take care of my brother, whom I loved.

I walked into the living room, quietly. Robin and Niko were sitting on the couch, Robin with a book and Niko staring blankly into space.

But when I knocked a knuckle against the doorframe to let them both know I was here, Niko turned his head and looked at me. Not stared through me or past me, but looked at me. He was there. He was back. I don't know what he saw in my face, but the blank expression melted into compassion, and Niko held up his hands to me, welcoming, imploring.

"Oh, Cal..."

His voice was hoarse with the silence, but it was full of compassion and love.

I could hardly stand it, and if I'd had anything left in me, I think I would have cried again.

I went to him, and put my face in his shoulder.

To Be Continued...

Move to New York City
Take your woman by the hand
Leave her there with your things on the doorstep
And there's no way around it
Could this be our last dance?
Fall asleep with the TV darling
I'll be back again

Do you want to see it?
The place where I was free
'Cause in my mind I've been there
And there's no-one there but me...

In the morning I'll find you
Let the light shine away
Down the road that's leading me nowhere
And there's no way around it
Could this be our last dance?
Fall asleep with the TV darling
I'll be back again
I'll be back again
-"Twenty Years," Augustana