Burden of Innocence

It was always the same: the pain followed by death (rinse and repeat as many times as necessary), and then she would come to clean him up and put him back together - sometimes literally. He never asked and she never told him whether it was on His orders or her own will, and he was infinitely grateful for every visit, cherishing each one as if it were the last. While she worked they would talk - or she would talk if he couldn't - and it was always about small things, the things in life they had taken for granted and now recalled with a clarity that could have been painful if it wasn't shared.

"Do you remember October mornings?"

"I remember... On really cold ones, the air sparkled when the sun rose, because of frost overnight. Just for a minute, the world was made of rainbows. Then the sun evaporated it all."

"Oh God yes. Do you remember October 29th 1997? The coldest October day on record in London!"

"It was even worse on October 17th 1993 in Scotland. And don't even get me started on before records."

She laughed, he grinned; meanwhile her hands were busy with a sponge and a bucket of water, wiping the charred skin from his new flesh.

"At least the apples were good that year."

She laughed again, because if she didn't she might think about what she was doing and cry.

They never spoke about Him, or what happened to him, or what was happening to the Earth. That was their reality, and if it became their everything they just might break. The others had their own ways of coping - Francine depended on her anger and outrage at being tricked, becoming increasingly bitter and withdrawn; Clive reverted to childish optimism and idolisation of his family, refusing to see Francine as anything but his wife and Tish as anything but his innocent daughter - but Tish had been young and idealistic and when her illusions of the world were shattered Jack had been the only one to tell her it was okay to feel hurt and that it would pass.

He was right, but only because she had him. Where her family became insular and set themselves against the world, Jack showed her how to look over life and see the bad and the good - and there was so much good she'd missed before she met him. She was halfway to acceptance when He found out about their little talks and decided to punish them both.

She had to watch, this time. And every time she made a sound, every time she so much as flinched, more pain was added to his agony. It was unbearable. It shattered her acceptance and taught her to hate with a fire that never died.

But she still came afterwards, hosed down his cell and held onto him as he screamed his body back together. For once, as she sponged away the blood from the new flesh and he caught his breath, she didn't speak and she didn't smile.

"I'm sorry," he croaked after she carefully slid water down his throat, and she looked at him sharply, surprise breaking through her encompassing rage.

"What?"

"I'm sorry you had to see that," he said, a little smoother this time as his throat regenerated. "I'm sorry you had to watch His cruelty. He likes an audience."

"But it was my fault, because of me! All the things He did to you, because I-"

"No, it wasn't. None of this is your fault, and it is more than you should be asked to bear. I'm sorry that this is your burden, and I'm sorry that this is so unfair - but I'm not sorry for you."

She looked at him incredulously, ready to disbelieve him - but he never lied. Not once in all their talks had he lied. As his words sank in, she examined them with all the intelligence that had led to her success, turning them over without emotional bias. And, as she peeled away the shock and the rage and the guilt, she realised they were true.

She should not have had to see that - it was His fault, He made her watch, He did everything, and He did not need an excuse. She was...just an innocent bystander.

Now she couldn't look away from him, from blue eyes that had seen to the heart of her and regretted only the circumstance. Shock filled her and held her immobile, body and mind, until he spoke again.

"Come here."

Mechanically, she followed his direction, stepping up until she looked up into his eyes from only inches away. His head tilted forward and for a panicked moment she thought he was going to break all the bonds of trust she'd laid and kiss her but - no, he did, but it was on the forehead and full of all the affection of the closest friend, all the love without the merest smudge of desire, and it broke something within her. Her guilt, the whetstone of her own self-destruction, shattered inside her as she broke through her shock. She clung to him, pressed against his chest as she cried for her own innocence and the ruin of her former life through no fault of her own, and he stood and soothed and pressed kisses to her head and let her mourn for should-have-been. He was her rock, her steadfast anchor against everything that tried to destroy her; he was her constant, and she would never let him go.