[(No...no...no, no, no!)] Saga wailed in my head, her head thrashing back and forth, her mind loud enough to make my ears feel like they were bleeding. [(Not you! Not...not you too!)]

Her thoughts were almost exactly mine, and the rush of despair and torment flooded out of her and into me, her thoughts became mine.

I could only cradle my head in my hands and hold myself as I tried to weather the storm of emotions buffeting my mind. I'd never felt like this in Saga's presence before, never felt like this ever before. It was like when she had been dreaming and all of her thoughts and feelings flowed into me, uncontrolled, unrestrained...but a hundred times more potent. I felt my own grasp on reality slipping, threatening to be drowned by hers.

And hers was not a good grasp. Even without any specifics, I could feel pain and suffering and just...just giving up, a defeat so complete, brought on by a fear she didn't understand.

Saga was afraid of what they'd done to her, what they continued to do to her, what they threatened to do to her. And more than anything, she was afraid of dying. And she was not handling it well.

"Saga please, calm down!" I screamed at her, hearing my own voice higher and catching in my closing throat than I thought. "I can't help you like this!"

[(...I can't...no...nobody can help…)] She shuddered within her restraints violently, thrashing as she hung from her arms, doing not a single thing to them, but prompting a splattering of black blood to drip from her torn-open body.

She gasped with agony, and I felt it as well, like my own body had just been torn open. I clenched at my guts, my vision flickering from the pain.

"Saga!" I screamed at her.

[(...scared to die...don't...want to live…help...help...please...)]

"Saga!" I screamed again. "You have to tell me what's going on! You...you have to tell me why you're not healing! You have to tell me something!"

I clenched at my gut and fought off her feelings. I could block them out to a degree, but the emotions pouring from her were too strong, too much for any person to feel without madness. Even tempering them, they still threatened to overwhelm me. I couldn't imagine how she had lived with them for as long as she had.

And I didn't even know how long that was. The last time any of us had seen her was over a month ago. For all I knew, she'd been enduring this that whole time.

I felt a new agony inside of me, guilt and pain of my own that this could happen to her, that I'd broken her from the relative safety of her prison only to introduce her to a world which would turn her into this. That whatever fucking sick torture had been put on her, it was my fault.

The sick guilt filled me up and made me want to throw up. And then I had a realization that just made me feel even more guilt, even more crushed by my own impossible vortex of emotions.

I felt a little better. The guilt was awful, it burned at my insides in a way that felt as bad as Saga looked. But it was my own, it wasn't being shoved into my mind, and as it filled me up, as I let the resentment against my own stupidity and etched every millimeter of Saga's anguished form into my mind, the guilt overflowed within me and pushed the external emotions out.

I embraced the guilt, revelled in it, anything to block out the pain.

When talking to AEGIS after I'd slept with Karu the first time AEGIS had told me all of the conflicting emotions she was feeling which threatened to overwhelm her and ultimately forced her into so much anguish she'd shut down her emotions rather than cope with it. At the time, I just remembered thinking there was no way I could feel that many things at once.

And...I guess I was right. I wasn't a complicated person. A fucked-up shitty one who dicked over every single person who ever loved or tried to help me, sure. But not one who could fit a dozen emotions in my brain at a time. So as the guilt filled me up, there just wasn't any room left for anything else.

It was the guiltiest relief I'd ever felt, and that just made it guiltier. But as my emotions returned to a level I could handle, there was something else galvanizing under the guilt.

Determination.

"Saga...talk to me, please. I want to help you but...but how did this happen? What can I do?"

She shook her head violently, black hair hanging in her face.

[(...beyond help…so much pain...save me...beyond...beyond hope...just give up…)]

"Saga, please! I want to...want to do anything I can. I want to fix my mistakes...I...I never should have let you go, never should have let you be alone where they might do something to you."

[(...I have to...Athan...I have to...so much pain...I'm sorry…)]

"You have to what? Saga, please!"

[(...I'm sorry...sorry...Athan...sorry...not strong enough...sorry...Athan...so much pain…)]

With a dark twinge of resignation nestled in the fear, I felt my mind prickling. She'd started doing something to me. I thrashed my head like I could shake her off, feeling tears fly off of me onto the metal floor.

"Saga stop it! I'm trying to help you! Let me help! Tell me what I can do! Tell me what happened!"

[(...sorry...sorry...sorry…)]

The prickling in my mind became more pronounced as she jumped in without any of her usual restraint or subtlety. I felt my thoughts moving around in my head erratically, memories jumping together and unusual emotions as random thoughts sprang to mind unbidden.

"Saga, get the fuck out of my head!" I screamed.

I thought very hard at her, anything I could think of to get her out. I thought of us breaking up, how her fake death had broken me, thought of all the good and nasty things I'd ever thought about her, how I loved and hated her.

[...no...please,] she said [...please...Athan...don't make it...make it harder than it has to be…]

She pushed those memories aside, digging around for something else, but every time she did, I thought of something right back at her. She'd always asked me to try not to think when she'd touched my brain before, so now, in order to save her, I thought as long and as hard as I could about everything I could wrap my mind around.

How offended she'd been when I thought I first met her and mistook her for a cluster of mushrooms. The paralyzed embarrassed glow on her cheeks when I'd electromagneted her outfit open. Waking up under the tree to find her laying next to me, the smallest smile on her face. The memory of her mother berating me for being a bad child when Saga was dreaming.

Saga shook her head and I saw and felt her frustrated tears.

[I have to!] she screamed. [Let me do it!]

"No, Saga. Fuck that and fuck you!" I screamed right back through tears of my own. "Let me help you, damn it!"

I thought of when I'd caught her half-naked accidentally busting in the bathroom on her. Of the softness of her lips when we kissed, of the lie of a perfect day we'd spent together. Her and Moon sitting together on the couch at the Christmas party, together but alone. Her sad smile at being found hiding behind a dumpster like a child. When she lied to Lia about the cause of all her blood at the party to spare my sister's shattered feelings.

I remembered hope she had. I remembered the determination she was full of when she started her quest. I remembered the deep well of knowledge and insight she'd always had for me, the advice she counseled with, even when my successes were against her interests.

[...Athan...stop!]

I remembered the cold of her skin against mine. The love in her dark eyes, hidden behind so much snark and cynicism and pain, but still there, still inextinguishable.

[...I have...have to! Please! I'm sorry just...just...]

I felt and remembered and filled myself up with thoughts and dreams and memories until I was the one pushing feelings into her. Feelings of love and happiness and hope, the things she'd always given me, the things our entire friendship had been full of. All of the embarrassments, all of her obnoxious quips, her standoffishness and pricklyness, but somehow all of that had fallen away with time and beneath it all, just her. Just Saga.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

[(...)]

I let her know how I really saw her. How strong I thought she was, how she had never not been there for me when I needed her. When the XPCA came bearing down on us, she came to protect us, even thinking it was wrong, because she couldn't bear losing us then. How she'd put down her hate of humans enough to live with them in Vegas, how she'd always stumbled, but always kept an open mind and an open heart to the truth, even when she was full of pain.

And how now, I needed her again. How she was close to losing me now. How I knew she was full of pain now, but now more than ever, I needed her to hear me, needed her to tell me how to save her, so I could return the favor and save her again.

Tears were falling from both of our faces nonstop as I forced my thoughts and memories deeper and deeper into her until we were connected mind and soul. Until she was forced to see the truth of my love for her.

[...I'll die…], she said.

I shook my head. "I won't let you."

I thought of one more thing. An old jingle for processed meat products Karu had taught me. No sooner did the words pass from my mind to hers than she smiled, and hanging there, half a crucified body with blood dripping from her, black hair covering her face as her naked, shrunken body shuddered to draw breath...with those words in her mind, ever so softly, coughing for it, she laughed.

[Fuck you, Athan,] she said from behind a sad smile.

"Saga, tell me what happened. Tell me how I can help."

She shook her head. [I don't know. Director Blackett and Captain Targa...I can't...can't see them. Can't touch them. It's like they don't exist. But they...they can touch me…]

"They did this to you?"

She nodded mutely.

"Why aren't you healing?"

[I don't know. He just...he…]

Fear and pain welled up within her again.

"Don't talk about it," I said. "Don't think about it if you can. I'm sorry. Just...just give me your memories. Let me live it."

She shook her head again, flinging off tears and blood. [I can't. It would hurt you.]

"I'm stronger than that. I can do anything if it means saving you, Saga."

Her lip trembled. [I'm so scared. I'm sorry Athan. Please help me.]

"Then let me see," I said.

She just hung there in silence for a minute before silently nodding. And then I was her, and felt pain and suffering like I'd never known as the boundaries between her body and mine disappeared to my mind. But even as I gasped for breath and felt my flesh growing cold, the memories were there, waiting for me to relive them.

It was only a little bit after Christmas when I...when Saga, that is, ambushed Blackett in his own office at home. I had the upper hand, had shot him, and had the intention of finding out why I couldn't touch his mind and where Mage had come from and what he knew about her.

Things had gone wrong when I took him to his bedroom to dress his wounds and keep him from bleeding out. I found a couple of servants along the way and had them carry and treat him by dominating their minds. Unable to read Blackett though, I never expected it when I came face-to-face with Targa, equally unreadable and unaffected.

She didn't hesitate as she turned on me and beat my astonishingly frail body broken and unconscious. I woke in perfect health, but tied up, forced to watch as she treated Blackett's injuries over the fresh corpses of his servants. While she worked, they spoke, and eventually, I felt the burning of a needle in my veins as I was drugged.

I awoke here, buried deep within the earth again, my worst fears realized, and not permitted to be close to a single Exhuman or XPCA except Blackett and Targa, neither of whom had minds to touch.

Blackett explained what I would do. He desired the unwavering loyalty of any Exhuman brought before him to him and him alone. I would reprogram them in a process Targa dubbed 'redevelopment' so that they would have to obey his commands.

Of course I just laughed at him, until he advanced on me and ripped away a piece of my flesh with his bare hands. It was just a small wound...but it never healed. It put confusion into my heart like I didn't understand. The first day was brutal. Every time I mouthed off, or did something wrong, or refused, he would approach and tear away another piece of me, always by hand, and never healing.

Days passed, and I was more and more broken. Again and again he came and tore at me, leaving me less and less. I was terrified, I'd never felt pain or mortality like this before. When there was little flesh left on my leg, he broke it off, snapping my brittle bones like a cardboard tube.

I didn't understand. I was scared of things I'd never known before. Real pain, real risk of death...so alien to me, and I had no means of coping with them. It wasn't long before I was desperate to cling to what parts of me were left and doing as he asked, redeveloping Exhumans brought to me out of fear. When I didn't do it well enough or tried to hide things from him, he always knew. He would come by after a few days, tell me exactly what he knew I'd done, and then hurt me, again and again, for every failure she'd committed.

Under the fear, I drowned in guilt. For the longest time, I had held out hope, thinking Athan would save me. But as the number of Exhumans I redeveloped grew, I no longer wanted to be saved, didn't think I deserved to be saved, didn't think there was anything left of me worth saving. Every mind I touched was another reason for Athan to hate me, for me to hate myself. I fell into despair, gave up on life and on myself, and on Athan. I wanted to die, but was too afraid to.

With nothing left but these two conflicting feelings, I broke inside.

Until now, when Athan came, and forced me to remember everything in the world I'd forgotten. He put more back into her than just those feelings. There was more than pain and despair to this world. I remembered life, remembered myself. Remembered him.

I sat, floored by the pain and memories, my head spinning, my body physically aching, as she hung there, having endured a million times worse than I felt, having not just lived those memories, but still living in them, still trapped, still in pain.

Even though it broke her, she was still...still so strong.

"I...I'm going to get you out of there," I said, looking up at the twenty-foot gulf between us. My blades didn't reach that far. If I tried to magnet her down, I might wind up ripping apart the whole metal room, crushing both of us, and even if not, I'd destroy the elevator which was our way out. There wasn't anything else in here I could use.

I jammed my swords into one of the pylons in the floor which arched up to hold her aloft, only vaguely realizing I had almost twice as many blades as usual. The metal heated until it was white-hot, but it still wouldn't melt or move.

[Just...just go,] she said through fresh tears. [You've already saved me.]

"I haven't done anything, and I'm not leaving until I get you out."

[Just get back to the surface and do everything Targa asks of you. Pretend you were redeveloped. I'll...I'll be fine.]

"Fine? You'll be down here still, tortured. Twisted. Killed, even."

I tried shimming my way up the pylon, but it was just smooth slightly-curved metal. Not a single handhold, and too wide to grab effectively.

[I...I know. I'll just...I'll just stop them, the only way I know how.]

"Saga, you can't even touch them. I know if you could stop them, you'd have done so already."

I stopped to look up and saw that through her pain, she gave me a sad smile. Through her thin curtain of hair, I saw her eyes were totally honest with me for once, no lies, no sarcasm, just...just love, if I had to put it in a word.

[I can stop them,] she said. [I'm going to stop helping them, no matter what they do to me. And eventually...I'll be dead, and they'll never be able to use me to hurt anyone else ever again.]

"Saga, no. I won't let it end like that."

[It's not so bad,] she said. [I had a really terrible life, you know? I don't think...ending it...would be the worst thing anymore.] She laughed softly which turned into coughing, which promoted another fat black dollop of blood to drip out of her body. [Some of it…] she stopped and grimaced against the pain, which I could feel churning inside myself through her. [...some of it was even...pretty good. I got...got to meet some interesting people. I found...found a tree I liked. I fell in love.]

"Saga, you shut the hell up, I'm telling you. Nobody is going to hurt you ever again, if I have to stay down here and kill them all myself."

[You're such a nice guy, Athan, but you can't. If they want to, they can flood the room with gas, electrocute the floors, shoot fire from the walls...it's a safe room, to make sure they can handle any Exhuman I put my hands on.]

She frowned. [It's also probably getting close to the time they expect you to be done. You really should leave. But...thank you...thank you for...for everything. For my whole life, Athan.]

"No, Saga. I refuse. I don't care what they do to me, I'm not leaving you like that."

[You can't do anything for me. The room is set up so I'm out of range of whoever is sent in, or other safeguards. Just...just go. I'll be fine. Really.]

"No. Fuck that, and fuck this. I don't care if my powers are limited, I'll go beyond them if I have to. I'll do anything."

I walked beneath her where a black stain on the otherwise spotless floor indicated her position above me. From down here, she looked even worse, just diseased meat.

"This is going to hurt," I said.

[Athan, don't--]

I crouched, gave myself a three-count to anticipate the pain, and then jammed as much current into my legs as I could, forcing them violently taut. My legs screamed and burned, and I was certain I had at least pulled every muscle in my legs, but I was in the air, up there, higher than any olympian had ever leapt.

It still didn't put me anywhere close to her, but it was close enough. At the apex of my jump, my dozen swords flashed out and sawed through her forearms cutting through her below the elbows. She screamed as blade after blade tore through her until she fell, still screaming in my mind. I crashed into the ground, dazed, gasping for breath and unable to even hold or bend my legs, but felt the pain within her as well.

Abruptly, her pain stopped, and after a moment, with a gentle prickling on my mind, mine did as well. I laid there holding my now-numb legs and catching my breath when in the corner of my vision, a bare leg stepped down in front of me, followed by a second.

I looked up and there she was, whole and pale and flesh and blood as ever, trying to best to cover herself with her hands, but unable to feel any real embarrassment when there was so much happiness and relief in her now.

"Sorry," I groaned from the ground. "I lied. I guess...I was going to let someone hurt you after all."

[It doesn't matter. You saved me. Just like I knew you would, just like you always have.]

And then she cried and fell on top of me, holding me with her completed, pain-free body, exhaustion and relief pouring from her mind like a tidal wave.

Her emotions were still infectious, and I shared the feeling of completely unrestrained joy, wishing for nothing more than we could stay like that forever.

But in my mind, I knew this was only just the beginning. Up above, the fucking bitch who'd done this to Saga was still waiting. And after all she'd done, I was going to make absolutely fucking sure she did not leave here alive.