Eden looked at Curtis. Really looked at him this ti.
His face was scrunched up in a way she rarely saw, the usual composed, put-together deputy nowhere to be found. His brows were drawn tight, his jaw stiff, like he was physically trying to wrestle with what he’d just heard.
Then she spoke.
"Because as stupid as she was, Celine wasn’t entirely wrong."
Curtis’s eyes flickered.
"I couldn’t just make you choose when I know for a fact that you wouldn’t even hesitate to pick the disadvantageous option."
He stared at her, words clearly still processing.
"Huh?"
"If you’d co back and found at that ti, wouldn’t you have thrown away all those years of toiling just so you could go out there and prove to everyone that everything coming out of Tavian’s mouth was likely pure bullshit?"
She didn’t wait for him to answer.
"You’d be out there day in and day out clamoring for justice that we both know wouldn’t be served. Because without evidence, and with the preliminary investigations aligning with Tavian’s account, there was just no way we could’ve won back then."
Curtis opened his mouth, ready to deny it.
"You’d probably say no," Eden cut in quietly. "But that’s just not true. Because at the end of the day—just like today, and the many other days—after complaining, insisting, and arguing, you’d still do it."
"So to keep up with my plans and to make sure such a thing wouldn’t happen, I simply left."
Curtis blinked at her like she’d just accused him of sothing outrageous as she spoke in what honestly sounded like intense gibberish. Eventually, he scoffed, clearly annoyed and disbelieving.
"So let get this straight... That was it?"
"Are you saying you made that choice for ? Instead of letting decide what I wanted to do, you just decided for ?"
Eden understood why he’d be livid. In that situation, who wouldn’t be?
"No," she said, voice softer now. "Sorry, but I actually made the choice for myself."
"???"
"I just didn’t think I’d be able to survive another loss."
"!"
Silence settled between them as the words practically echoed inside the hovercraft.
They simply looked at each other.
Eden’s gaze was steady, almost pleading without actually begging. She wanted him to understand, not even to forgive. But at least to understand.
Curtis, on the other hand, looked like he was trying to absorb every word she’d said, like he was carefully dismantling each sentence in his head and putting it back together to see if it made sense.
Eden swallowed once before continuing.
"So, I’m sorry for being weak and selfish in that regard. I wasn’t confident I’d survive the sight of even you falling into ruin."
Her lips pressed thin for a mont.
"And maybe that’s wrong and stupid. Maybe I should’ve stayed so we could’ve gone—you and —against the world. Who knows?"
She tilted her head slightly and looked at him pointedly.
"But you tell . Had you been in my shoes, what would you have done?"
Curtis had opened his mouth to argue earlier.
Now it slowly closed.
__
Unfair.
How absolutely unfair.
Curtis had an argunt. He really did. There were so many things they could’ve tried back then. So many alternatives they could’ve explored if only she’d trusted him enough to say sothing.
But then she apologized. Then she asked him what he would’ve done in her place.
And now he was stuck.
Because if the conditions had been reversed, that crazy girl who once confronted a thief by herself would’ve hunted Tavian down without hesitation. It wouldn’t have been pretty.
If that insane torpedo had beaten Tavian to a pulp, as she very likely would’ve done, would he have been able to keep her from being punished severely as a powerless pariah?
Maybe now he could’ve done sothing from a position of relative authority.
But back then?
Definitely not.
"..."
"..."
Still. They’d never know.
Because as it was, they hadn’t even been given the chance to try. She’d taken that possibility away. Worse, Curtis felt like he’d aged a century because she hadn’t even left any traces when she upped and left.
He was trying to understand where she was coming from. He really was.
But did it really have to be that extre?
"I thought you were dead!" he burst out. "Sure, you were planning on leaving, but you could’ve said sothing!"
"Anything!"
"It probably doesn’t matter now, but I looked for you. All that ti, I’ve been looking for two people!"
He sounded incredulous, practically yelling in disbelief.
"We could’ve discussed the concerns and found alternatives. I wouldn’t have even stopped you from changing career paths!"
"And I would’ve been more careful. Between the two of us, I’ve always been the less reckless one," Curtis reasoned, exasperated. They weren’t exactly the sa kind of person. He understood her concerns. He did. They were valid possibilities. But still.
However, his entire argunt crumbled when the short woman looked him up and down and said with all seriousness, "I guess we should just forget the two-thirds deduction on our pay and how soone could’ve been court-martialed today."
"!!!"
It felt like a spike of hypertension.
Or like a massive stone dropping on his toes.
He nearly coughed blood at how attacked he felt.
Critical hit.
Because as embarrassing as that was, it had just happened earlier. It was like choking on his own words.
Curtis stared at her, feeling extrely annoyed at himself, like he was going to be driven insane at this rate. Eden kept that sa look on her face, and he was so heated he didn’t even know what exactly was fueling his anger anymore.
So what? Was there really nothing they could’ve done back then?
Was she actually right in leaving without saying anything?
He dragged his hands down over his face, pressing his palms against his eyes in frustration.
He couldn’t believe how helpless this felt all over again.
Finally, he scoffed.
"You’re telling this now of all tis. Did you expect not to be angry after hearing this?"
"No. Of course not," Eden replied.
"I don’t even expect to be forgiven."
"In fact, you can be as angry as you want. As angry as I was—am, even."
"But as you can probably tell, dealing with anger and maybe even hatred is infinitely better than dealing with death or incarceration."
She said it seriously, but this ti her brows furrowed when she looked right at him.
"I expected you to be so angry that I finished that damned course in two years just so I could return as fast as possible!"
"So no. I don’t expect that revealing any of this would fix anything. But I’ll have you know that you weren’t the only one frustrated."
"You’re angry? Well, I’m angrier! What did I even do to deserve that kind of derailnt in life?"
"I had life plans too!"
"But because so idiotic House existed, all of a sudden I had to throw everything away just to survive! And what do you know, now that I’m back, it’s not like we’ve been better off than when I was gone!"
"If anything, you often look like you wish I hadn’t returned!"
Gasp.
"Eden Allyn Harcrest!"
She jolted at the use of her full na.
"What the hell are you even talking about?"
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