Legalese: Angel Sanctuary, it's characters, indices and everything else belong first and foremost to the multi-talented Kaori Yuki and secondly to a list of companies as long as my arm, including Hana to Yume comics, Hakusensha and Central Park Media. As a fanfiction writer I don't have any right to this series at all. In mitigation I'm doing this for fun not profit and if anyone ever does make any money out of this fanfiction you can be double damn sure it won't be me.

Author's Notes: Another fic centered on Katan, this time focusing on the feelings of conflicting loyalty that Teiaiel's death might have stirred up in him. Like most of my other stories this is set at a definite point in the manga timeline, but unlike them it's hard to pinpoint exactly. I see this as occurring at some early stage in the Jahannam arc but exactly when is rather harder to say as for Rociel and Katan this part of the story is largely dead time in which they do very little of any moment.

I have no idea where Teiaiel is buried. The manga says only that her grave is 'in the place in heaven where the white flowers bloom'. Some have assumed this is Rociel's garden but for the purposes of this story I have created a locale which is more in keeping with the 'new land' she describes to Katan.

The flowers were blooming, just the way she'd said they would.

It was peaceful here, perfectly still and perfectly beautiful. The wind gently stirred the grasses, making the heads of the flowers dance, filling the air with the whisper of the leaves. There was nobody else in sight, barely even any sign of life, just the flowers and the grasses and the trees. It was beautiful… and yet somehow strangely empty, somehow peculiarly melancholy. Somehow, in spite of the beauty of the land and the carpet of white flowers, it felt dead. The land felt dead.

It was, Katan thought, fitting that it should be here that Teiara was buried. It was the way it should be. It was almost a surprise that Rociel had suggested it; there had been no way for the man to know what it was the two of them had talked about and yet Rociel had suggested burying her here. Here, in a place that, Katan felt, she had described to him time and time again. But maybe that was why when he came here it always felt so lonely and unfilled. It should by rights have been the kind of place that they saw together, if they were to see it at all. To be here alone felt wrong somehow; it felt even stranger to know that she was here as well, bodily at least, but her spirit would be somewhere else now and that was the part that mattered.

Teiara had been dead for longer than he had known her and that felt wrong as well.

Stood at the edge of the field, one hand resting on the limb of a tree, Katan squinted into the middle distance and sighed without really knowing he was doing it. Every time he came back it became harder and harder to find Teiara's grave. They hadn't marked it, it hadn't seemed important at the time and, he supposed, it still wasn't to anybody but himself. Unless you knew where you were looking and what you were looking for, there was almost no sign that the earth had even been disturbed. Maybe that was for the best. It was what they had wanted for her at the time, though Katan was beginning to wonder about that now. Not for her sake though, but for his. As the one who had been left behind, he needed something.

It wasn't right for her to have died like that. So senseless, so brutal. There had been no need for her to die at all. The man who shot her had done it simply as an exercise of power, because he could rather than because it had to be done. They hadn't been after her; they hadn't even been after him. It had been Rociel they were after and they had failed to stop him. Teiara had died for no reason at the hands of men in pursuit of nothing at all. What had she died for? For the need some violent, petty man had to feel strong and in control. Who had made himself feel better about himself by hiding behind the barrel of a gun. Who had been so craven that he couldn't even face down a little girl, a child, without a weapon in his hands. Just one more man whose life he, Katan, had been responsible for taking.

It wasn't right that, though she had been dead barely any time at all, Teiara should be forgotten. That there should be so little sign that she had existed at all. Surely such a remarkable child had deserved so much more than this? So much more than an unmarked grave in a beautiful but desolate field…

Teiara had been a chance for him. With her help maybe Katan could have moved beyond being nothing but Rociel's son. Maybe he could have started seeing himself as something other than a logical extension of Rociel. Maybe all sorts of things. She had been the last chance he'd had of pulling himself free from a condition he was beginning to find intolerable and she was gone. To think that such a small girl, a Fallen, had understood his situation more clearly than he had done. To think that she had understood him so utterly with such a short acquaintance…

But, she'd said, I always knew that you would choose Rociel.

God, how well she had known him. She had known deep down that her dreams would never become a reality. That Katan would always choose Rociel no matter how illogical the choice may have seemed to her, to anyone. There was too much at stake for him to abandon Rociel now. He'd invested too much into him. All his life there had been Rociel, or at least all his life in this body. Katan dropped his gaze from the expanse of the field, from the clear sky and the nodding flowers, and looked down at his own hands. This body; before that, an eternity of nothing at all. To think he owed Rociel even that…

Katan knelt and ran his finger along a blade of grass, almost hoping for a cut. He could still remember his own shock at the first sudden stab of pain, how he'd been far more surprised by the simple fact that he was feeling and that he had a hand to injure than he was by the injury itself. Even now he loved the smell of grass.

No, he couldn't have just walked away from him. In time it would have killed him. And Katan thought it would probably have killed Rociel too. Like it or not they needed each other. Such a bond, once forged, could not be lightly broken.

He had walked back into Rociel's apartments a while later. Katan knew that he probably shouldn't have stayed away so long but Rociel had wished to be left alone that morning. There had been nothing pressing to do that couldn't wait and hadn't Rociel said, with an unusually solicitous look in his eyes, that he wasn't quite looking himself at the moment? Hadn't he effectively been ordered to take the morning off?

Yes… but who could tell with Rociel now, when his moods changed faster than the weather?

Rociel wasn't there; the cool, beautiful, impersonal exterior rooms looked just as empty as that wide and lonely field had done, if not more so. He hadn't expected company there but here in Rociel's apartments? He had expected someone at least if not Rociel himself. The Sisters would probably know but Katan didn't feel like going and looking for them. He could wait; very likely Rociel had been called away unexpectedly but he would probably not be kept overlong. Probably it had something to do with Sevotharte, with his own attempts to divert and outmaneuver the man. It was hardly as if Sevotharte couldn't do with the shaking up, Katan thought. It was all too obvious who had arranged that botched attempt at assassination that had cost poor Teiara her life.

Dubbiel would probably be here somewhere, Katan thought, and besides it wouldn't be done to stay here. It would probably be better, at least for now, to make his way back to neutral territory and wait to be called, if Rociel decided that he needed him. He didn't have to need him but the days always seemed so formless when Rociel decided that he didn't want to see him. It had always been so and was even more so now that he had been relieved of all his other duties. Maybe that was how Rociel liked it; maybe he liked it better when his subordinates were nothing but his creatures.

Was that what Katan was? He'd taken Rociel's feather however unwillingly, and he knew what that meant for him. He was Rociel's, body and soul. He had no choice but to love him and admire him and wish for nothing more but to serve him, but how had things been all that different before? He had been like that anyway. He had felt a change but it had been nowhere near as severe as he had feared… What of Dubbiel though? The man had been his superior and he had been reduced to almost nothing. The what of him lived but the why was long dead. Why hadn't that happened to Katan? Something of the sort had happened, but it was nowhere near so acute…

Katan had never considered himself particularly resolute but he supposed he must have been.

Rociel returned twenty minutes later, flanked by a petitioner or two whom he dismissed with a scowl and an irritable wave of one hand. Katan, who had been waiting in the corridors for his return, fell into step behind him as the two men slunk off. Katan knew without having to look back that the two men's faces that they were exchanging commiserating glances. Probably they'd go try their luck with Sevotharte's men the minute the doors had closed behind Rociel, if they hadn't tried to contact him already. It was still early enough for the battle lines to be poorly-defined and alliances as fragile as spring blossoms. Soon, Katan knew, people would start siding with Sevotharte or Rociel in earnest rather than play this waiting game.

Rociel, of course, didn't need assistance. He had quite enough support already even if the minds of his followers were not their own.

He didn't speak to Katan as they walked, didn't even glance at him until they were back in the apartments Katan had only recently quit. It was obvious enough just from gazing at the back of his head and studying the set of his shoulders that Rociel was either angry or upset about something which didn't necessarily have anything to do with the thing he had been called away to attend to. Katan knew the signs well enough and he couldn't help but wince inwardly. At times like this Rociel was prone to lashing out wildly at anyone within reach, such was his burning desire for his rage to have a victim, and it didn't much matter if the target of his anger was deserving of it or not.

The sigh when Rociel sat down was completely unexpected, as was the way he rested his fingers against his temples, closing his eyes. It wasn't always easy to tell which way disappointment or distress would channel Rociel's moods, if he would react angrily or by losing himself in melancholy. This time sadness seemed to predominate.

"Lord Rociel?" Katan finally ventured when the silence had, to him at least, become unbearable. "Are you all right?"

A few moments passed in complete silence apart from the footsteps of, presumably, a Sister outside in the corridors and the faint sound of the outdoors from the open windows. Rociel shifted position slightly as if he were uncomfortable, his eyes a little unfocused, looking at nothing in particular; Katan watched him discreetly. There was obviously something on his mind; he was either thinking very hard or trying, by virtue of complete silence, to think of nothing at all.

"Still," Rociel said eventually as if he were answering a question that Katan had not even asked, his voice that of a child wondering where his mother was, "I suppose there's nothing for it but to wait. I just wish I knew what she was doing…"

Alexiel again.

He was back where he belonged. Katan knew it and yet he couldn't take a lot of comfort in it no matter how badly he wanted to. Like it or not, and a small part of him wasn't entirely sure he liked it at all, it was here that he was meant to be, by Rociel's side. It was almost, he thought, where he had been born to be (and had he not chosen his path himself? Nobody had told him to make the choices he did, nobody had forced him into cadet school and from there into the military; it had just seemed the logical thing to do at the time, the only way to see Rociel again, the only way to be sure he could stay by his side). He loved Rociel deeply and that was all there was to it. And yet he couldn't help but wish things had turned out differently.

Maybe he still resented Rociel trying to control him. Maybe he still resented the way Rociel had refused to let him die. But… on the other hand, wasn't it also strangely flattering? Rociel didn't see things the way other men did. Even if at first his intention had been simply to control, maybe - just maybe - he had ultimately done what he had done because he had been desperate for Katan to live? Couldn't it have been partly because he valued him too much to want to lose him?

Even so, to suddenly have someone aside from Rociel take an interest in him had been flattering too. And to suddenly be offered a clear choice between two different paths, one of which he was beginning to find, if not stifling and restrictive, then certainly more than a little worrying, had been nothing if not novel for someone whose life had always seemed to follow such a logical progression. Who had, it sometimes seemed when he looked back on it, never really questioned the path he was on let alone realized that he had any choice in the matter. Terrifying though this new version of Rociel could be Katan had never even considered leaving him voluntarily. Not before Teiara.

The choice had terrified him; no wonder he had procrastinated. Both paths had involved a sacrifice of something he had always considered vital, so much a part of him that Katan had never even considered living without it. He could have one or the other but he couldn't have both no matter how much he needed them. He could stay truly honest and begin to atone for his sins on the condition that he gave Rociel up as lost. Or he could choose Rociel and moral extinction. Whichever way he was pulled he would end up losing something fundamental.

And, subconsciously, he had always known what path he would ultimately choose.

Katan tried to tell himself that his hand had been forced, that Teiara had died before he could make a decision. That with her death he had been forced to stay with Rociel and suffer effective damnation. And yet… yet he knew this wasn't true. He could, had he been resolved to walk the road the little girl had showed him, have found his way alone but he hadn't even tried. Even when dying Teiara had begged him not to hurt anyone any more. Not to avenge her murder but to let her killer go free. But he couldn't do it; Teiara's way would have meant denying a part of himself that was there whether he liked it or not, just as life with Rociel was slowly killing another part of him. Her death, and the suggested imminence of Rociel's own, had been all it took to shatter his resolve (he simply couldn't lose both of them). Poor Teiara, he thought, feeling a sudden surge of guilt. The last thing she had seen had been his own betrayal.

What kind of person was he that he had chosen Rociel at the cost of his own soul? What kind of a person was he that he could only feel secure when standing by another's side?

But how could I even have considered it, Katan thought, how could I even have considered leaving him when it's so painfully obvious that he needs me too? I know him. I know he was hurt when Teiara told him we were leaving; that was why he denied me. Even if he doesn't realize it himself he needs me too. I know he does.

(Sometimes, there's nothing for it but to take comfort in what little you've got.)

"I said leave me alone!" Rociel picked up a decanter and hurled it after Katan, missing his head by a few inches, spattering him with glass shards and water as the fragile, beautiful thing hit the wall behind him and shattered. "Get out!"

Katan closed his eyes despairingly and a pained expression flickered momentarily across his features as he let himself out of the room, gently shutting the door behind him. He leant against the door and sighed softly, shaking his head, trying to ignore the hot prickle behind his eyes that told him that what he wanted more than anything was to cry. Pull yourself together, he told himself. Remember where you are, remember who you are. He doesn't know what he's saying, he doesn't mean it. He's just upset but getting upset yourself won't change things. Another crash and the tinkle of splinters of glass hitting the floor told him that Rociel had thrown something else, most likely the glass that had sat next to the decanter, at the closed door; Katan started guiltily (did Rociel know he was still there? Was he angry about that too?) and moved away, staring at the polished wood of the door in front of him.

Alexiel again.

Something about Alexiel brought out the worst, most contradictory, childish and infuriating side of Rociel's nature. Alexiel made him feel anxious, vulnerable and confused and Rociel didn't like feeling any of those things, so he hid the stirrings of his uncomfortable dependence in petulance and sudden violent rage. Katan didn't know what Rociel's anger had been directed at this time but the target for most of it had, as usual, been him. Katan was close to hand whereas the real targets of Rociel's hatred were not only out of his reach but also out of his control. Rociel was hurting and there had to be someone he could hurt back.

Rociel was well aware he was losing his mind and he was terrified.

Katan's pain wasn't just for his own upset at being so summarily ordered from the room or even his own injuries; he had barely even noticed the narrow cuts on one of his cheekbones and on the arm he had raised to protect his eyes (they would heal quickly, frighteningly quickly in fact. Rociel's blood would take care of that). It was also for Rociel, for the slow erosion of the mind of the man he had always thought so highly of, for the horror and utter powerlessness he must be feeling in the face of it, for the sorrow and incomprehension he felt over Alexiel's betrayal and the wanton behavior of her reincarnation. And to think that in spite of everything she had done to hurt him, Rociel's current temper sprung solely from the fact that he didn't know where his sister was and what she was doing there. It was the wait; it was getting to the both of them.

For whatever reason Alexiel seemed to have completely disappeared. She had, Rociel had known, made her way to Hades in an attempt to retrieve the soul of the tedious child her current host was infatuated with, an infatuation that was hurting Rociel and confusing Katan. But she hadn't come back. She wasn't dead; Rociel would have known if she had died. He knew enough about where she was to be confused by it. To think she still preferred their company…

Katan wondered briefly what had happened to the girl's soul (had Alexiel found it? If not, why not?), but soon pushed the thought away. It just wasn't important. The girl wasn't important really, except as a means to an end… but that was the way Rociel had thought of her too and for all he would never stop admiring Rociel, his admiration didn't go so far as wishing to emulate his thought patterns. Not when the man Katan had always thought Rociel was wouldn't have wanted anything to do with some of his current thoughts.

He raised one hand to his cheek, tracing the cut there almost curiously. He'd barely even noticed it was there and it was practically gone already. Katan supposed he had to have dried blood on his cheek and he rubbed at it with his fingers in the hope that it would get the worst of it off. He wasn't proud of the way Rociel lost his temper at him; certainly he didn't want anyone else to find out if it wasn't strictly necessary. Rociel had a position to maintain and the less that leaked out about the state of his mind the better. That would have been a weakness and Rociel's current enemies, in much the same way Rociel did himself, exploited weaknesses ruthlessly.

Katan didn't like having to think tactically about Rociel but he couldn't see how else to handle the situation. Provided Rociel kept his temper in public, what he did in private was his own affair. Far much better for him to lash out at Katan than it was to do it at Sevotharte. It was just one of the hazards of Katan's own position.

He knew he should have moved away from the door by now but he hadn't. He wasn't sure he wanted to leave Rociel alone around so much broken glass, certainly not when he had gone so eerily quiet. Not when Katan suspected that, having released the worst of his rage over Alexiel, Rociel had been left with nothing but his pain. He might still be needed. Or was it just that he couldn't bear to leave even though Rociel had ordered him away? And why had Rociel done that anyway, Katan wondered. Because he wasn't Alexiel? Because Rociel wanted his sister and since he couldn't have her he had decided, like a bad-tempered child deprived of a favorite toy, that he didn't want anything at all? Because all that any other company would have done for him would have been to remind him of what he could never have?

But Rociel was hurting. Even if he didn't need him Katan couldn't leave him. Not here, not now, not like this.

So he stayed, leaning against the wall and waiting for anything, watching over nothing at all for the sake of a man who wouldn't even notice. Even if all he got for it was more abuse Katan couldn't leave him in this state. He'd be too worried; it would hurt him far too much. And what would Rociel think if he changed his mind again and Katan wasn't anywhere to be seen? He'd feel betrayed and Heaven only knew that Rociel had been betrayed too often already. He was the only one Rociel had left. Even if Rociel didn't want him there Katan wouldn't ever leave him. Even if Rociel ordered him away…

That was the only order of Rociel's that Katan would be unable to obey.

He must have fallen asleep.

Katan pushed himself into a more upright position, blinking once or twice as he oriented himself, then biting his lip to stifle a curse. He had fallen asleep where he stood - outside Rociel's door, no less! - something that both irritated and alarmed him. He shouldn't have fallen asleep at all, not in the middle of the day anyway, and certainly not here. Not when Rociel was angry with him and didn't want him to be there at all. How long had he been asleep anyway? He looked up and around him for some kind of clue. The sky was darkening - twilight, then? Or was there going to be a storm? It had certainly been hot and still enough earlier - and the lowered sun cast long shadows across the room. In spite of his heavy clothing Katan shivered slightly; the temperature had dropped.

The only thing he could do was get up and pretend that none of this had happened. No, better, get away from here and find something to do. Even if he was solely under Rociel's command and Rociel hadn't given him any orders today, even if there was nothing constructive for him to do, there would be some assignment or errand he could find to fill the hours between now and bedtime. Even if it was something as simple as tidying his desk…

Rociel watched him from the couch through slightly narrowed eyes; in the dim light he looked paler than ever. He looked tired - for a moment Katan wondered if he had been crying before his own eyes widened in panic and he hastily scrambled to his feet, pushing away from the wall, already stammering a no more than semi-coherent apology. How long had Rociel been watching him? Was he angry that he hadn't left? Why hadn't he woken him? He was, he supposed, still a little disoriented.

"Lord Rociel… I'm terribly sorry, the heat-"

In spite of himself Katan felt a little hurt. Not real? What did Rociel mean by that? It was a relief that he didn't seem to be angry for whatever reason (he'd been furious this afternoon over far less), but Rociel's introspection was no more desirable than Rociel's anger, albeit for different reasons; no good ever came out of this mood either. Certainly Katan didn't like the direction his thoughts were currently taking and wished he knew how to steer the conversation well away from it.

"Are you all right, Lord Rociel?" He said finally. Concern for Rociel was already beginning to override any uncertainty.

The last time Rociel had asked that of him, in front of Teiara, it had been little more than a demand. A deliberate attempt to prove to all three of them that, in spite of what Teiara was saying, he still wielded some kind of power over him. This time Katan thought he sounded far more unsure, almost as if he were pleading for something. I want to believe you, he seemed to be saying, so why don't you look at me when you talk to me? Again, what could he do but comply?

"It's all right now." He said simply. "I'm not going to leave."

He spoke more firmly this time, looking straight at him. It was true, completely true. He couldn't have left Rociel even with Teiara's help and he would never be able to leave. Everything he had ever done had been for Rociel. Everything about him was possible because of Rociel. He existed only through one of Rociel's whims. He was Rociel's. He existed only to serve him.

Maybe that was because of the Grigori in him.

Teiara had known it without even having to ask and yet all the time she'd let him lie to her, knowing full well that he was lying. Knowing that no matter what she had lost from the start, that no matter how much Katan said he wanted to be with her, to change for her, it wasn't going to happen simply because she wasn't Rociel. He had betrayed her utterly and she had apologized to him for lying, when he was the one who had lied. However unwittingly, he had led her along. He shouldn't have encouraged her to trust in him or believe that there was any hope for a creature like him. He had sinned too many times already. There was too much of Rociel in him for him to even consider a different path. But she had known that all along.

That was why Teiara hadn't let Rociel look at him. Because she had known that his resolve would only last as long as Rociel remained an abstract figure. She had known that, if they had looked into one another's eyes, he would have left her quite willingly. His dilemma had only lasted as long as he could imagine Rociel safe and well; as soon as he was threatened and in danger Katan had wanted nothing more than to protect him, to keep him from harm. After that all Rociel had to do to keep Katan beside him was to let him see his face, hear his voice… that was all it had taken to bewitch him once again.

"Katan?" Rociel asked. "Do you think I'm pretty?"

He's changed, Katan thought. He's so different now. Before the resurrection he hadn't realized that he had grown taller than Rociel, how different his father's face had become, how young he was starting to look… or how much his mind had changed. He'd never really realized up until recently that Rociel needed him just as much as he needed Rociel.

They had both been damned long ago. So long ago now that Katan doubted either of them could ever have found redemption. He might have managed it alone, but Rociel… Rociel was too far gone. Too far gone in all sorts of ways. There was no way out for him and Katan couldn't see him drawn alone into an already inevitable conflict. He owed him too much. Rociel needed him too badly. He couldn't have left him even if he had wanted to. They were both too involved with one another to stand alone any more. By themselves they would both be somehow incomplete. He could only have saved himself and alone Katan didn't want to be saved. Even if staying with Rociel did nothing but dragged them both down, he would accept it gladly if they could only meet their ends together.

Rociel couldn't have faced another betrayal. That would have broken him completely.

Teiara, I'm sorry, Katan thought. I'm sorry I'm not a better, stronger man. I'm sorry I betrayed you. I'm sorry I couldn't live out your dream for us both. But I need him. I couldn't be true to you because I need to be with him so badly. I know he hurts me and he doesn't seem to want me. I know that staying with him will slowly kill everything that's good about me, everything you saw in me and liked. But I can't leave Rociel because I love him, Teiara. I'm sorry. I just love him, that's all.

Outside in the darkening gardens, the wind stripped the petals from the flowers.

~fin~

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