I posted this to AO3 just a little over a year ago, I think? Anyway, it's finally here on fanfic - so read away!

This is my first foray into a guilty pleasure TV show from my childhood, so please bear with me!

WARNINGS for references to sex, but no descriptive sex scenes. And swearing, I think?

SURVIVE

At first, Omega is okay. It's cold, it's gross and most of the prisoners are locked up, and Tecna even finds a bunch of scraps that she barely manages to fashion into a (irritatingly skimpy) suit that protects her from the cold. It's slightly uncomfortable and all, but it does the job, and suddenly she finds that life on Omega is way easier.

Water isn't hard to find. There's ice everywhere that she can break off and suck on, but the problem is food. After a week, she can already tell that she's lost weight, and she never weighed very much to begin with, so the thought scares her.

She's starving, and her stomach is making little rumbling noises that serve as warning bells. But it's as she's chipping off more ice to drink (eat?) that it hits her. It takes a few goes, and she throws up her icy meal more than once because she hasn't properly spelled it - which is more painful than not eating at all. But, eventually, she's got a successful food supply to keep her, well... going, at least.

It's one day when she's left a little cave hole in the wall that she's found for shelter, just to collect more ice to keep her going, that the real trouble starts.

"Oi, you," says a voice, and Tecna stiffens.

She has about two seconds to decide what to do, how to handle this possible threat.

Sorry, Timmy, she thinks dully, before spinning to face the voice.

There's a guy standing in front of her, his lashes dark against his pale skin, cheekbones gaunt and his eyes such a brilliant shade of blue that she can see it from ten metres away. He's tall - taller than Timmy - and he looks to be only a year or so older than her at most.

"Hey, handsome," she says, a flirtatious smirk sliding easily across her face. She internally thanks Stella for her consistent flirting, because it's that which has taught her what to do now.

He raises his eyebrows. "I thought you were someone else," he says. He's lying, but there's something that's darkened in his eyes and she thinks it might be attraction. The cropped shirt and short skirt that she's wearing just be doing it - or maybe it's the hair. Or maybe it's the fact that nobody else is around and he's hoping to get some.

He won't.

He does.

Sex with the guy (Tobias, he introduces himself as) is horrible. She feels guilty, and tries to imagine like she's not cheating on her boyfriend. The thing is, he'd offered her shelter and protection from the other waking prisoners for a price and she hadn't known what else to do but give in.

She's not really into it, he can probably tell, but she stays with him for weeks as he starts to build a criminal gang out of the waking prisoners on Omega. Every time she sleeps with him is just another time where she feels horrible. Timmy probably thinks she's dead - they all probably do - and all she's doing is fucking some lunatic prisoner to try and save her own skin. She should've died. Died rather than betrayed her own dignity and her boyfriend for some asshole Omega prisoner.

But she and Tobias build the gang for a solid four months, and she's almost like his right hand man. She helps run the place and she keeps the rival prisoner gangs at bay with a few brilliantly crafted traps. And she keeps him occupied in the downtime with slick and sweaty skin on skin.

And then she leaves one day, because she needs to get in contact with Timmy somehow and she's not going to do it by fucking some guy just to keep a protected shelter. She tells Tobias that she's getting more stuff for traps, but she's really heading out to a site where she's seen some awesome communication equipment that she knows she could rig up.

The only problem with that is... well, some other guy has gotten there between now and when she'd seen it last.

His name is Owen, and he's as much of a dick as Tobias is.

"If you fuck me," he says crassly. "I'll give it to you."

She doesn't want to fight, and her strength is low in this place and he's got a mean looking gun by his side that she reckons he could fire before she could transform. So, she scowls, but wastes no time in shoving him against the nearest wall.

Two weeks later, she's not sure what angers Tobias more - the communication equipment that she hid or her telling him about sleeping with Owen (because he's a possessive bastard, really). If she can't be honest with Timmy, she thinks she will be with Tobias. She doesn't really care what the bastard thinks anyway.

He tries to kill her where she stands, and he manages to stab her in the abdomen with a spear, but she's got a wicked cool cloaking device on strapped to her hip now that she uses to escape.

Now, she is an escaped convict. An escaped convict, who, after twenty minutes of walking in the freezing air alone with a stab wound in her side, collapses on the floor in a heap.

"Hey, guuuurl," it's cringe worthy but it's how he greets her. Blonde and with a cute little boyish face that is more infuriating than it is charming, she hates him straightaway.

"Hey, boy," she says bluntly. She sits up, observing her surroundings with squinty eyes and her heart racing in her chest. She doesn't know where she has woken up but there's a thin blanket providing warmth and a thin, rough bedroll beneath her. But there's shelter around her and bandages covering her abdomen from where pain is radiating like a tsunami wave.

But she doesn't mind much because his smile is reassuring and he doesn't try to fuck her so she trusts him. Mostly. (She could probably take him if he turned on her, anyway.)

From then on, he becomes Boy. And that's just because she later finds him too annoying to learn his name.

"This is-" she wants to say 'illogical', but how can it, when everything suddenly feels so wrong right. He doesn't listen, and his lips suck a sweet spot on her jaw and she arches into his touch. What is wrong with her? Everything about this is illogical. She's being illogical.

She lets out a groan and pushes him away, even though his breath is sweet and warm in her ear and she doesn't want to lose contact.

"I can't. I-"

Boy smiles at her, and she can tell he's disappointed and she tries to tell herself that she isn't, but she wants him to keep kissing her because-god.

"You're in love with someone. And he's not here."

"I was going to say that I'm simply 'with someone else'. I don't really know what love is."

"I guess it's someone who you can't stop thinking about. Someone who you would die for. Someone who is precious."

She doesn't reply, but it's Timmy who's face appears in her mind, all glasses clad and idiotically bumbling: and she thinks maybe she does know after all.

She does actually know his name. It's Kit. But she doesn't call him Kit, ever, and she reckons that he knows that she knows because he doesn't ever introduce himself. She had heard a couple of the other people who take shelter in this large cave call him by it.

And Tecna has a good memory so she doesn't forget it.

"Hey Tec," says Boy when she bursts into his little room. There's a blazing look on her face as she strides up to him and smashes her lips with his, and she knows she doesn't love him but she needs him. Every fibre of her being is buzzing. She's a live wire.

And he's wild, like water in the ocean. And the thing with electricity and water, is that they don't match. Not really. But they sure do send up a lot of hot sparks, and there's something about those sparks that has Tecna intoxicated.

"Shut up," she hisses, and when they fall backwards on his bed, he hardly complains when his head hits the stone floor. His lips meet her neck, the shell of her ear and her lips and he's kissing her like he's starving: like he's dying. A stone settles in her stomach, and she thinks perhaps it might be guilt.

TimmyTimmyTimmy. His name is in her mind like a mantra, and she thinks perhaps she says it out loud, but she can't be sure because Boy doesn't really care when he collapses onto her chest and their breathing is so in sync that it is like they are one. One being. One entity. One jumble of buzzing nerves and guilty pleasure.

"Kit," he says, when he rolls off her and they are lying side by side, both with a thin sheen of sweat covering their bodies and breathing coming in short laboured breaths.

"What?"

"My name," says Boy. "Is Kit."

She already knew, but it's different somehow, coming from him. So she doesn't say anything, but she thinks TecnaandTimmy sounds better than TecnaandKit.

She's crying and she doesn't understand, because she's only cried twice before in her life, and this makes three. Her eyes are stinging and she can almost taste the snot in her nose, and she hates this weak feeling that comes along with it because she feels like an idiot. Her hands cup his cold left one, and she's leaning over him, sobbing and begging him to stay with her.

PleaseKit... she wants to say (because she calls him that now) but the words don't come out and all she does it let out a mangled cry that makes no sense. His eyes are dull, hands are shaking, and his breaths are becoming shorter and shorter. Logically, she knows he only has minutes - but the minutes are extending in her frantic worry and they feel like hours. But could the world be this cruel? If she can't have her friends and her old life back, why can't she have this new one? Why can't she be allowed to be happy?

"You'll find Timmy," says Kit, and his eyes are glassy. "You'll find them. Kick Valtor's ass for me, yeah?"

"I'll gut him like a fish," she promises, and leans forward to rest her forehead on his. She doesn't care that her hair gets in the matted blood on his head, or that it's staining her hands like food dye. "I think I could've loved you," she whispers.

"No, you couldn't. Don't say that just because... just because you know that I-"

"I could," she says, and a tear slips down her grimy cheek and lands on his. "I don't know how I can... how do I live in this place? When I have no one?"

"They'll find you," says Kit, his breathing heavy and shuddering. "You have t' bel've your communication device w'ked. You'll see T-Timmy 'gain." He takes a deep, shuddering breath and his eyes close for the last time but she thinks she hears him whisper that he loves her before the life escapes him completely.

She doesn't say that that's what she's afraid of, and she thinks of Tobias, of Owen and of Kit - all betrayals to Timmy that make her feel so sick that she very nearly throws up. Instead, hating herself for crying, Tecna tries to hold back the sobs that wrack her entire body, and she presses her lips to Kit's once, twice, three times and lies there, hunched over his body until she hears the scouts that killed him come back again.

And when they do come, the wings on her back don't beat, and the magic doesn't escape her: instead, she kills them with a dagger from Kit's belt and a discarded gun on the ground. She doesn't blink. These are fast reflexes that she has learned to harness in this place, and she knows she can fight better than half of the Specialists she knows because magic is unreliable and it is weak because there is no blood and there is no lasting pain.

Because what Tecna has learned in this place is that physical pain is nothing and emotional pain is crippling and magic doesn't kill. Not usually. Not unless enough hatred fills it up to push it past wounding.

Because magic is good. But Tecna is not. And her weapons and her hands do not have independent souls, and she can force them to be bad for her.

But her magic is still pure and it betrays.

She sits among the bodies around her until dawn. There are only five, but the blood that they had shed seeps under her legs and stains them. She cannot seem to care.

She wants to cry but she realizes that she can't. Kit is gone, but he was right. He was a mere comfort and she'll never love him like she loves Timmy.

But how could he love her when she has so readily betrayed him here?

She promises to herself, tracing her finger through the pool of blood dully and brokenly, that if she sees him again she will be honest. And he won't love her for it but it's better to snap her heart in two than lie to his.

It's okay if she can't taste his lips again. She deserves to have the feel of Kit's skin as the last she has ever felt because his death is her fault and when did her life become so wrong? Her heart has become twisted and mangled in this place and when she looks down, at the bodies lying around her and the blood that she is practically bathing in, she dry heaves multiple times and the tears finally fall.

(But, it is in those tears that she sees her soul. And it is purer than she had remembered.)

Tobias finds her weeks later. He opens his arms to her, tells her that he thought she was dead, and that he's sorry for stabbing her. She doesn't believe him, but she plays the part well. He is ready to forgive (ready to love her, again, he says) and she is not, but she pretends she is.

She's gotten good at that, here, too. Good at pretending. Good at killing. Good at betraying.

So she pretends some more and allows him to take her back to the gang where she beds him forcefully, leaving harsh marks on his skin from scraping nails down his back and bruises on his thighs from where she gripped too tightly. And then, she pretends to sleep, once his breathing becomes steady.

She stands, slowly putting back on her clothes and then peering outside the door... but there's Timmy and Helia and Brandon in chains and she almost chokes on the bile in her throat. How are they here? The thought makes her heart race, and all she yearns to do is run to Timmy but instead, she turns around to Tobias with a white hot feeling of rage pooling in her belly.

She plans to kill him now. While he sleeps. She hasn't touched her magic for so long, so when it comes back - it comes back in full force. But it loves her too much to allow her to kill again, and so instead it does something it has never done before.

And she teleports away.

It is light outside, Tecna realises. And there are voices ahead and she thinks there's a familiarity to them but she doesn't want to get too hopeful so she just hides. Except something comes whizzing toward her sturdy shelter and she recoils. Something snaps in her, and she raises her voice higher than it has been for weeks and wants to since when it cracks ever so slightly.

"Do that again and I'll wipe you out, I'm serious."

The silence after that is deafening, save for the slight muttering coming from whoever attacked her. So, she decides to break it.

"I don't know who you are or what you want, but you'd better…" she sees that familiar mop of fiery red hair and finds her lips turning up at the corners because oh God, it's Bloom. "Bloom? Is it really you?"

And she would've said more but Bloom is there and she's running towards her.

"Tecna, you're here!"

They embrace, like they are sisters (and, in a way, they almost are) and for a moment; Tecna remembers what it is to be a Winx girl. She's crying (and three plus one makes this the fourth time in her life) and she's shaking like a leaf.

"Oh," she murmurs. "I've never been so happy in my life." And she doesn't mean to say it but the words escape her before she can stop them and they make her look weakweakweak. "I've been through so much here."

Bloom's arm is around her shoulders and her breath is warm in her ear and Tecna can't stop shaking and crying and sniffling in relief.

"Tell us everything," says Bloom, in that soothing tone of hers as she leads Tecna away.

She gives Sky a hug, too, and her knees are shaky and she nearly collapses in his strong hold. And they are so good to her, because while she knows she is relieved, she comes across as cold and withdrawn because she has not truly liked the presence of another since Kit. She is lonely.

Her magic churns fitfully in her gut.

Telling Bloom and Sky little parts about Omega is hard without letting them know everything. She's scared to tell them about her kills because she knows it will drive them away from this Mad Hatter that she has become. So she shares a bit. She mostly speaks of her survival, when they ask about her outfit; which coaxes out a rare smile.

Her voice is stronger than it has been for months, and she feels so full of energy. And she makes it sound like she's had no luck with the convicts, that they've all been hell-bent on forcing her out of here, because it's much easier than telling them the truth.

And also, when they ask, she tells them about seeing Timmy and the other boys. And she is not scared anymore because she remembers what it is to fight side by side with Bloom and Sky and she knows they'll be okay.

(They are.)

The biggest problem is, later, Tecna has escaped from Omega with her friends. But she hadn't run into Tobias again. And the thought should be a comfort, wrapped in Timmy's arms again and trying not to let him know how much she hates herself right now, but she feels a larger sense of dread than ever because of it.

And she can't help it but all she can think is that she's such a liar. Such a goddamn fool. And Timmy's hands around her waist are too nice to push away with the truth, so she keeps quiet all the way back to Alfea; until the last hour leg of their trip when Stella decides to start questioning Tecna on pretty much everything.

Everyone is horrified when Tecna immediately bursts into tears again, and so is she because she hates this weakness she has now. She hasn't cried so much in her life, and she's cried three times since she got landed in Omega and twice today.

"Tecna?" whispers Stella, her voice calm but trembling slightly. "I'm… sorry. You don't have to say anything yet if you don't want to."

Tecna waves a hand. She wipes furiously at her eyes and desperately tries to rid herself of these ridiculous tears.

"No," she murmurs. "It's okay. It's just… you should've left me there. I should've stayed."

She misses the gaping, perplexed looks from everyone around her because the tears are still falling and she's still trying to wipe the away. And suddenly, she finds that she can't look at Timmy anymore, and she can't be in his arms anymore either, and so she tries to stagger to her feet.

"Tecna?"

Even that shattered, broken tone of Timmy's voice only rips her heart into smaller pieces and she gasps loudly as she tries to hold back more tears at the sound of it.

"I'm sorry," she's whispering. "I'm so sorry, Timmy," she murmurs. "I was so horrible… you'd hate me for the things I've done. All of you. I don't… don't deserve…"

"Don't deserve what?" Timmy snaps, and everyone else wisely keeps quiet for a conversation that is clearly only meant for them.

Tecna doesn't understand how he can be saying this – and she knows that he wouldn't be if only he really knew. And her knees nearly buckle underneath her as he stands up too and places his hands on her shoulders almost desperately.

And when he kisses her, then and there, she jumps so violently that she knocks his glasses askew and backs against the far wall. She looks anywhere but at him, because the destroyed look on his face makes more tears threaten to fall.

"Please, Timmy, you can't," she shakes her head. "I can't… we… can't…"

"What?"

It is almost everyone in the ship who exclaims loudly, then. Tecna runs her chipped nails down her cheeks – leaving angry red lines in their wake as she struggles to get the words out. Because out of them all, Tecna and Timmy might have been the least couple-y but they were always the most put together couple of the lot, too. The couple with the least actual issues like jealousy and apparent betrayal. And yet here they are.

"Tecna, please," Timmy's voice lowers to a whisper. "Please, tell me what's going on. I can… I can help you."

Tecna knows it's coming. The bile rises in her throat and she tries to force the words back down but they just keep coming to the surface until finally… she spits it out. The truth. At last.

"I slept," Tecna says, more clearly than she has in weeks. "With three guys. On Omega. And so, you see, I betrayed you. And I lied to you. And I can't expect you to forgive me. So I'm… I'm letting you go."

Stella makes a choked noise in the back of her throat, and Tecna wonders if it is disgust or outrage or horror but all of them would be thoroughly justified now, anyway. And then Brandon mutters a stream of profanities that he probably thinks nobody can hear, but Tecna is so on edge right now that she could probably hear a pin drop.

But, while Timmy's face falls and he looks slightly hurt, he merely shakes his head. "No," he says. "You cheated on me. So I get to decide whether or not you 'let me go' or whatever the hell you think you're doing. So, start from the beginning. Tell me about all three, from the beginning."

So she does.

She explains first about Tobias. How he had cornered her and she'd been too weak to fight, and she'd slept with him to save her own skin. Because sleeping with him gave her the protection she needed to get through those first rough months. She tells him how she and Tobias built a gang from the ground up.

And it's so odd, how she can sum up four months of harsh, freezing betrayal in a few short minutes. And everyone is gaping, and Musa looks mildly impressed, and Timmy doesn't look angry – he looks relieved.

Then, she moves on to Owen. She tells them how she'd needed the communication device, but he'd gotten there first and, well, there was only one easy way to get it from him.

She can't bear to look at anyone as she speaks, because she can practically picture those ridiculous pitiful looks that she knows will be on Flora and Aisha's faces. And Bloom keeps making little noises of horror in the back of her throat, and she knows that Helia is shooting Timmy odd little looks out of the corner of his eyes that Tecna can't discern, but put her on edge, anyway.

And then there is Kit, who she can't explain away. Who was irritating at first. Who she sought comfort from, who was there for her when she was alone. Who was there for her until he took his last shuddering breaths. Who taught her what love was, even if she realised it wasn't he whom she loved – but Timmy.

"So," she whispers, finally, her voice hoarse. "You see? I love you, Timmy. And I didn't think I did, but I realised that… that I knew what love was and you were the only one… the only one who fit the bill. And it was too late, because I had already betrayed you. And I just… I love you, so I can't just…"

"Stop," Timmy interrupts her, and it looks like he's forcing back a wide grin that has Tecna frowning incredulously. "As far as I'm concerned, you did what you had to do to survive. And I don't care that you…"

He stops. His eyes have dropped to her midriff where that dark scar from Tobias stabbing her is prominent. And then his eyes narrow.

"What the hell is that?"

Tecna doesn't need to look to know what he's talking about. But she finds herself at a loss for words, so she doesn't respond.

"Tecna," he says, quietly and with an intense fire that has the hairs on the back of Tecna's neck stand up. "Who did that to you?"

She shrugs. It doesn't hurt anymore, and she can't really imagine why he's concerned about it, anyway.

"Tobias," she says. "I told him I slept with Owen and the possessive prick stabbed me with a spear before I could escape… what?"

Everyone is staring at her; incredulous and horrified.

And then Timmy stalks forwards, and he smashes his lips to hers (not seeming to care that they have an audience, and not caring that he's acting far too out of character for Tecna to make sense out of anything). "I love you," he tells her, with conviction. "I love you so much and I swear I am never letting you out of my sight again."

And then Tecna's hands tremble as they snake slowly around his waist, and she has to crane her neck to kiss him again but she doesn't care because she's drowning in the taste of him. A steady warmth that she hasn't felt in so long is spreading from her lips to the tips of her toes. She seems to realise that he's telling the truth and, while guilt still viciously grips her heart, she tells him that she'll never give him a reason to let her go, either.

Thank you all so much for reading! Drop me a review and let me know what you think!