In Which Rona Arrives at a Different Level

September 7, 1181

Unlike the first time, Rona endured no wait before Aspen arrived. Half a second later and she guessed she would have spawned in her arms. "You're back!"

"Mmm." Why didn't this feel right? She hadn't considered that a possibility before--not consciously, at least--but the last time she'd taken that mixture, there might have been a ghost of a spark somewhere. She'd thought that kiss might have been something. But this didn't feel...

A figure stepped into the view over Aspen's shoulder. Maybe that was why. "Oh. You're here too."

Two red-maned heads, two pairs of peridot eyes, two sets of freckles mapped to perfect mimicry. God, that was uncanny. Even when she hadn't known a damn thing, she couldn't have imagined seeing them together. "Hello, Rona."

"Hello." That didn't feel right either. "Ashe."

She offered a hand out of some baseless obligation. He took it and adorned it with a brief peck. Still not right.

"Are the kids all right?"

"They're all right." Was that enough? "They miss... you, I guess."

"You guess?" A smirk. If he could have been amused, that's what she might have figured. "Who else would they miss? I am their father."

Aspen sniffed. "Technically. As if you care, though."

"Hmm?" That... made sense, in theory. Rona had wondered that herself when she'd found out, if he could care. But a month later and Yvanette still spent every waking moment by the front door. Kids could sense how they were loved, at least that was what Rona's mother said. If Ashe didn't care, surely Yvanette would have given up by now? If she was still dead sure he could return at any minute... "Don't say that..."

"Why not? It's true." Aspen shrugged, eyes narrowed in a sidelong glare. She didn't wear it well. The Aspen Rona knew never would have glared like that at anyone. "By all rights, those kids should be mine."

Was this where Ashe revealed himself to be something better than what she'd been led to believe? Rona turned her eyes on him, to a disappointing result. "Jealous?"

"Do you think? You can think, can you?" He could! She'd said so herself, hadn't she? Or had Rona not taken this as safely as Tavrin had said she could? "My love and my parents' names and even my freckles. They ought to be mine. They are mine.

"You agree with me, right, Rona?"

Why were they dragging her into this? "I..."

"Don't be stupid. Rona knows where babies come from. You couldn't have given her those kids, even if you could have won the tournament on your own." But hadn't she, on some level? If Ashe was just an agent of Aspen, if she'd created him, if he was somehow based on her... "Why are you complaining, anyway? Didn't you will me into existence just to do all the things you couldn't?

"You get that... right, Rona?"

No! "Why are you fighting?"

Green eyes met, confused as she looked, for once. "We're not fighting."

"But you are!" Perhaps neither of them could think! "And neither of you are acting like yourselves. What's wrong with you?"

Another look. "Rona..."

"Stop it!" The next one of them who threw her name in her face like some head-patting father was getting a slap worthy of the desires of her own head. "Stop dragging me into this! I just want to know what's going on and you're making it worse! Quit it!"

Ashe kept staring at her, though Aspen focused her attention on him, head jerking lightly to the side. "See what you've done? She's upset."

"And why are you blaming me? If I'm just some expression of you, then everything either of us does is your fault."

"You know, you could stand to be a little more grateful. You only exist because..."

Rona knew what came next. She didn't have to listen. She couldn't listen anyway.

She couldn't take it any more.

"Just leave me alone! Both of you!"

No calls or protests followed--just an eerie silence, out of keeping with either shade. If Rona looked back, she doubted she'd see either of them. They'd gone off to fight elsewhere, each more against the other than they were for her. They'd left her.

They didn't care.

No one did.

"Rona?"

It was the same voice. Or it was sort of different. Or she'd lost the will to care. "Go away!"

"Rona, it's me." Someone's arm curved to her shoulders with a glove-like tightness. "They won't bother you any more. You've left that level of your subconscious. You're at a deeper level now. They can't hurt you here.

"They don't exist here."

Rona wiped an eye and looked up. "But you're him."

"I'm both of them. But not the twisted versions of them that were bothering you." He let his arm fall and stepped around to her front, smiling. The previous Ashe had a sinister edge that this one seemed to lack. "That was a deep level, even if it wasn't the deepest. On that level, you still didn't believe anyone could ever love you. That's why you turned Ashe into some soulless body, and why you turned Aspen into someone jealous and self-centered enough to straddle you with something like that."

That... that seemed to fit. She never had believed Ashe when he'd told her he loved her. He'd shown up in her life out of the blue and he'd been so damn perfect from the start. She'd never felt worthy of that. "What about this level?"

"This level isn't perfect. No human mind can have all the facts, after all. But this level is a step closer to your personal truth."

"Personal truth?"

"That you are worthy of love." A glint from his neck caught her eye. Her key. Had the other Ashe worn that? "I'm sorry I lied to you about who I really was, but I never lied about loving you. I've loved you since we were children. I'll still love you when we're both rotting in our caskets." His grin perked on one side. She wasn't sure if she'd seen him smile like that in real life. Maybe she'd seen Aspen do so once or twice. "I'd list all my reasons, but you didn't take enough potion for that amount of time."

"I... wouldn't have guessed it was such a long list." Whatever heart she had here, she thought she felt it fluttering in her chest. It was a rare enough sensation that a rational person would have feared some ailment, but reason had no place here. "It's really you, isn't it?"

He nodded. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

"It's all right." Was it? Yes. Yes, it was such a small thing now. "I don't know if I would have believed you anyway."

He reached for her hands, his wedding band a soothing cool against her finger, her own a newfound warmth.

That did feel right.

"Do you believe me now?"

Her heart beat laps around her lungs and never tired. Her hands shook and her skin tingled and repressing a smile had never been such a feat. "I believe you."

He stepped forward on feather-light feet and took her in his arms, twirling her about several circles before setting her down again. The reunion of slippers and ground was beyond her notice. "I love you."

"I--" She stopped, and not too soon. She'd never said that, not to Ashe. She couldn't let herself say it for the first time in her head, even if he'd never be any the wiser. She would tell him in person, when he returned home.

Home. Her mother had been right about that.

"That's all right." Of course he could see her thoughts. They were in her head, after all. "You can tell me when I get back."

*

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