[i]”You know, maybe we don’t have to do this,” Bella whimpered, digging her fingers into Dany’s lace shirt. The little scaredy-cat peeked over Dany’s shoulder, still so tense! That was okay, though. She was going to have fun.

She still was jumping at noises and wringing the hem of her pretty dress and according to Dany’s research in the Encyclopedia Puellae she might be missing her litter, and even if she was clapping at games and smiling with all her teeth and following Dany around everywhere, she needed to have fun. She needed to see that life from now on was going to be awesome. Just the two of them, all the time forever.

Below them, the three hundred steps of the Blue Skies Staircase.

“This is going to be awesome,” Dany said, and tilted the sled forwards. Bella squeaked and leaned forward with Dany, and the front of the sled hit the first step, and down they went, picking up speed even as it got bumpier and bumpier, Dany clinging to the lead to keep the nose up, Bella clinging to her chest so hard and making a noise that might have been a scream and might have been a squeal, right in Dany’s ear, and Dany grinned big enough to fill the whole world, but the whole world was just the stairs and the blur shooting past them, exquisitely carved railings and mosaics on the walls and marble pillars burnished until they shone under the azure-blue light of the Victoria Chandelier, none of them distinguishable as they went down faster and faster and then she didn’t pull the nose up high enough and they were launched into the air, and then everything was blue stairs and a blue chandelier and spinning and the sled flying overhead and the air getting knocked out of her lungs and Bella shrieking and thump thump thump thump thonk, except she didn’t remember the thonk, that’s just what Bella said later it sounded like when her head hit the floor, and from her perspective the world suddenly became Bella.

“Oh no oh no oh no,” Bella said, her ears flat on her head and her hands smooshing Dany’s face and her eyes wide. “Milady, are you okay? Do I need to— I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—“

“‘mokay,” Dany said, and giggled out of the leftover adrenaline and the way the world was still spinning, even if the look on Bella’s face wasn’t really funny, but that’s okay, because her next plan, whatever it was going to be, would really make Bella laugh and have fun, and besides, that was awesome, even if the sled was going to mysteriously go missing afterwards, and it was all the better for having Bella on the sled, holding onto her, yowling, and even if she wouldn’t admit it was fun, Dany knew, Dany knew that scream was a fun scream right before they went flying…[/i]

It would be nice to be Redana again.

Stupid. Feckless. Disastrous. All reasons why she can’t come back. But it would be nice, wouldn’t it? For this moment to have some kind of context. To be able to blurt out “‘mokay” and see the relief flood her scared face again, to know that in all their roughhousing no one ever really got hurt, that Dany just wanted to make her dour, serious little [i]puella[/i] smile again.

But Skotia can’t be Redana, because to be Redana right now would mean being a dangerous, selfish friend-killer. Being Redana would mean being the person who turned Bella into this monster who fights monsters instead of a maid who looks away and bites her lip so she won’t laugh at a dumb pun. Being Redana would mean taking on all the responsibility for everything that led them here.

And being Redana would force Bella to give up this Beautiful and make her whole world about the princess she hates and resents. Again. It would mean ruining her life all over again.

No.

Redana has to stay dead.

But when Skotia comes back to himself, with a throat full of black bile and a body that’s alternating between feverish cramps and the chill of death, it’s so hard not to wish he was Redana, in Bella’s arms, and that she’d have the right thing to say this time. A thank you. An apology. The words to convince Bella to take her hand and come back to the [i]Plousios[/i] and have dinner with Dolce and see how much and how amazing Alexa has been growing, the strongest and most amazing warrior in the galaxy, and she could show Bella how much she’s learned about naval engineering and starship engines and then, oh, she’d swap places and prove to Hera and Bella how much she really meant it by being Bella’s maid, learning what it was like for Bella back home, doing her best to earn some forgiveness from her ex-best friend in the whole universe, while Captain Dolce led them all to freedom and a new tomorrow.

But it’s okay. He can’t blurt anything disastrous out. He can’t even touch her and tempt them both away from saving Beautiful. When he convulses underneath her, and her eyes go small and frightened and her ears go flat on her head, he’s only saved by her last-second realization; she turns him on his side as he vomits up wine and party snacks and the ablative layer of his esophagus, until he’s a shivering, helpless mess, crying and hacking and miserable.

But this, too, is just. Is right. Bella must have been miserable, abandoned and shut away in the dark and unable to move. Her hurt is his hurt, just like she has made his hurt her hurt (burning red in the socket, don’t you remember how much she cried out of one eye, the other’s ducts swollen shut after the surgery?).

Right now, he’s ugly, like her heart always was. (It must have been. She was so selfish. So oblivious. Just trying to make her new toy stop being sad to make her feel better about owning it.) His hair is plastered to his forehead; his lip is black and swollen; his eye is bloodshot and half-blind.

Is this enough, Hera? Is this enough, Bella? Until you forgive him, he’s not allowed to stop. Even if he can’t stand up, or even take her hand. Even if his perfect human body is fighting back with agonizing slowness. Even if watching her kiss someone better will crack his heart in half because he doesn’t deserve another kiss from her, ever. He’s still not allowed to stop.

Because if he gives up, he really [i]will[/i] be worthless.