How Could This Happen?

Writers: Dana, Eimi
Date Posted: 7th November 2005

Characters: Ar'lis, Gaiya
Description: After days of avoiding her, Ar'lis runs into Gaiya, and their conversation takes a turn for the worse
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 9, day 7 of Turn 3

Gaiya wrapped her arms around herself as she walked slowly back towards the Weyr. The beach has always helped her think. She always felt better after spending time sitting in the soft sand, listening to the waves and smelling the sea, watching the setting sun slip past the horizon in a fiery display. But today she didn't feel any better at all.

Ar'lis... She couldn't help thinking about him. Ever since the mating flight she hadn't a trace of him. Gaiya thought she knew why. She hoped she was wrong...

As if her thoughts had summoned him, she could see him up ahead, slowly walking back to the Weyr up from a different path. Should she go to him?
Should she pretend she didn't see him? Her heart ached for this sudden uneasiness. It was like before. It was like it was after she had walked in on him and Syntara... Was that it? Was it like that again? Was he feeling the way she had felt? But she had done nothing _wrong_!

"Ar'lis!" She called his name without thinking. It was as if her body knew what to do even though her heart was still not sure.

The bronzerider paused, his eyes closing briefly at the sound of her voice. Then he turned around and forced a small smile for her - a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Hey there, love," he said quietly once she'd reached him.

A thousand questions shown in her eyes as she looked up at him. She chose the easiest. "Were you going for a walk?"

He nodded. "Just finished. Heading back up." His eyes searched hers briefly before he looked over her shoulder and the ocean. The truth was that he'd been avoiding her, for some reasons he knew, and others he didn't.

She reached her hand out for his. "Do you want to walk back together?"

He took her hand in his, his fingers tightening slightly around hers. Though he felt uneasy being with her right now, he felt a little comforted by the familiarity of it too. Slowly they began to walk in silence. She must know. Or suspect. But who in this sharding Weyr _didn't_ know or suspect? He knew he should say something. Anything. It wasn't sharding fair to her to not get an explanation from him. But Ar'lis couldn't bring himself to say anything.

The silence was thick and heavy. They had been so easy together before that flight. The timing could not be a coincidence. Something had happened. Something had happened during the flight, or after it, but something about that flight was causing this rift between them, and she silently begged it was not what she feared it might be. It was a flight for shards sake. Things happened during and after a flight that would not normally happen otherwise. He of all people should realize that! But if that was all it was, why did she have that sick pit in her stomach?

"So, have you been busy lately?" she asked quietly.

"A bit. Drills've been going a little longer than usual. But besides that..." he shrugged a shoulder, giving her another one of those small smiles, "everything's been pretty routine." **I'm a sharding liar.** Nothing has been routine for him lately. Nothing.

It was a lie she saw through right away. 'Pretty routine' as of late had involved time together, and that certainly hadn't happened. **He's trying to avoid it. What bothers him so sharding much that he would avoid me and lie about it? It's not as if we had ever made a promise to be exclusive!** "Yeah, me too. Everythings been... routine..."

He winced inwardly. Shards... He sighed, his thoughts arguing with themselves before he finally murmured, "Gaiya...sweetheart, I'm sorry..."

"Don't, Ar'lis," she whispered, currents of guilt enveloping her. "It was a flight. Things happen. Please, Ar'lis. Can't we just move on? Can't we forget it happened and just... start again?"

"I can't just forget it, love... I... I just can't." He shook his head slightly, a shadow darkening his eyes. **Rape.**

She stopped and reached up to take his face in her hands. "Please Ar'lis!
It wasn't meant to happen! It was the heat of the moment!"

He gazed down at her, his face seemingly devoid of emotion. Gently he brought his hands up to hers, his fingers light, almost caressing in a way, as he took her them from his cheeks. His thumbs moved over the backs of her hands as he slowly shook his head. "No, love," he said softly.

"Please, don't do this," she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. "It was a mistake! It wasn't supposed to happen that way!"

Shocked by her sudden tears, Ar'lis shoved away his inhibitions and drew her closer, concern flickering in his eyes. "Gaiya... Gaiya, love, why are you crying, hmm?" His voice was quiet as he smoothed the tears away from her cheeks.

She nestled her head against his chest and wrapped her arms around him. "What do I have to do to make you forget it? Just tell me, I'll do it! It's no one's fault! It just happened! Why can't you forget it?"

"Because we _raped_ each other, Gaiya!"

Gaiya wiped the tears from her eyes away on his tunic, processing what he just said... **This isn't about me and...** She had thought he had been avoiding her because of what _she'd_ done! But this was something else!
Ar'lis raped who? Is _that_ what the rumors were about? The rumors that the flight was a bit rougher than normal. She knew that happened sometimes, that people could get carried away in the heat of the moment... But rape? "How could that happen?" she whispered against him, her mind almost refusing to process the possibility.

He hadn't wanted to talk about it. At all. But the harsh words had escaped before he could stop them. He shook his head, fighting the sudden, angry lump in his throat, unable, and unwilling, to reply.

She pulled back and looked up at him. "Talk to me. Tell me how this could happen."

Ar'lis looked away.

Memories of the way looked at her and touched her in his weyr that day after she interrupted him and his greenrider came flooding back. She wrapped her arms around herself shaking her head. No, it didn't mean anything. He was wrong. He had to be wrong. "How could that happen, Ar'lis? I don't believe you would do that." Or did she?

"It wasn't intentional!" he snarled, his eyes haunted when they finally came back to rest on her face. "The flight went _wrong_, Gaiya. _Wrong_
in every sharding, possible way a flight _can_ go wrong!" He crossed his arms over his chest, as if to guard himself from the onslaught of memories...and from the horrible weight of her stare. She'd never looked at him that way before.

And it sharding hurt.

"But it was a flight! You were not yourself! Were you?" No matter how heated a flight had been, Gaiya had never heard of a flight participant being _unwilling_. That just didn't happen. Did it?

He wouldn't look at her. "Lenala and I both crossed a very thin line." His voice was quiet, distant.

She shuddered at the thought of the man she had been sharing a bed with being capable of such an act. "Did you know? Did you know that was what you were doing?"

His eyes flashed as he turned them on her. "Do you think that I would willingly _rape_ a woman, Gaiya?" His hands clenched, his voice tight, angry. "You think I would do that?"

Gaiya took a step back from him, fear and tears filling her eyes as she shook her head and wrapped her arms tighter around her body. She had never seen him so angry. It was not like Ar'lis. Not like the Ar'lis she _thought_ he was, at least...

He ran a hand roughly through his hair as he took in a deep breath, trying to shove his anger back. He'd scared her. Bitterness and guilt knawed at him. Ar'lis looked at her, wanting to move to her, wanting to take back what he's said. "I'm sorry, Gaiya. I'm sorry..."

"It's all right," she mumbled, though she couldn't quite look him in the eye, still not sure what to think. "I should get back."

He gazed at her. "Yeah..." Shards.

"Good night, Ar'lis." With her arms still wrapped around her she began walking back to the Weyr at a quick pace, fighitng the urge to turn around to look at him.

His murmur turned into a soft growl, and he felt his throat tighten. "Good night."

Last updated on the November 7th 2005

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