"In innocence there is no strength against evil," said Sparrowhawk, a little wryly. "But there is strength in it for good."
-Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore


He tore the walls of his mind red. He tore through them, a million times, in the speed of thought; he tore through them in every possible way he could, in every horrible permutation, but the impending sickness and hurt never abated. There was no justice here.

He tore the walls of his mind red, trying to find an answer, trying to find some solace, some thread, some hope, and there was no answer, no hope, just pain. He saw it all in his mind, and he screamed and he screamed and he screamed, until his throat was raw and sore, and he screamed some more. He screamed for the pain that wasn't his and was; screamed for love, and heartbreak and injustice, and he screamed 'No,' and he screamed 'why', and got no answer.

He tore the walls of his mind red. He couldn't take it back. He couldn't stop it. He screamed and spun in circles and tried to find the answer, and there was no answer here. It went through his mind, and he couldn't understand how the universe could be so cruel, he couldn't understand how people could be so cruel, he couldn't understand, and he loved these people, and some of them did this, oh God, he couldn't save him.

He screamed until he couldn't scream, and laying on a bed of rose petals, he tried to breathe and found he couldn't; the pain was everywhere, in everything. He couldn't understand. He choked and tears ran free and he pleaded to a God he didn't even know if he believed in for it to stop; he pleaded for it to be fixed, pleaded for it to be okay, pleaded for justice, and he choked, torn through red and bleeding inside, on a bed of rose petals.

"I'm so scared," he whispered in his mind, feeling it all burning through, and knowing it was going to end him. "I'm so scared," he whispered in his mind, as the pain and memory and trauma and grief tore him just as deep as his love.

Finally, mercifully, Harold Lee woke up. Eyes flying open, and he just... knew. He reached for Scotty's face, hands to either cheek, and sought out his husband's perfect brown eyes. It didn't matter that the words were only in Scotty's mind; Harold knew.

"Look at me." It was a command, loving and firm and clear. "It never happened. Look at me, Scotty."

"I saw it," and it was a wail, even if he had no breath to say it. Drawn and tortured, and every bit of that grief was written in every bit of him, and he choked again, squeezing his eyes closed, fighting for air and fighting for it to end, all at once. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I canna fix it, I saw it, I love you."

"Stay with me. I love you. Stay," Harold held Scotty's face firmly. Level speech, firm. "It didn't happen. It was a dream. It was nothing, it happened to no one but something that looked like me and seemed like me but wasn't me, and I don't even remember it anymore. And all the other pain? You are the answer for. Tenthousandfold. They got theirs. I got mine. I got you. Look at me. It was a nightmare. That's all."

"Why?" He pleaded it, a long cry out, to the universe and against it; he couldn't understand. "Why?" He dragged at air, clawing at Harold's wrists, trying to grab on, heel kicking out, petals disturbed.

Harold held Scotty's face, never letting go, even when Scotty clawed and grabbed. "Because I was hurt. She was hurt. Because a sad little puppet came from that hurt and I thought that puppet was me. All this time, but he wasn't. The person that happened to wasn't real. It happened because the other man was too stupid, short-sighted and ignorant to realize he was hurting that puppet. It's over. It's dead. That didn't happen to me any more than I dumped coffee in the other Scotty's lap. And that other man? He got tortured. Viciously, remember? remember it all? And then he just faded. All those people, they faded away to nothing. They didn't even die. They just faded, unloved and unwanted anymore. They got theirs. We got this. We love, and we live, and we hold each other and we breathe."

He choked again, on half a hitched in breath, tears running unchecked. "I couldna stop it." His fingernails tore at Harold's wrists, body fighting trying to breathe against the torture leveled on it from within. "I love you. You... were nae... nothin'. It hurts..." He screamed again, outloud this time, and finally latched onto Harold's wrists, dug in hard, body arching.

Harold gritted his teeth under the pain, shuddering out a breath. He gritted through it, and when he could speak again, it was just as level. "I love you. You did stop it. You stopped it from going on and on until I died. The one you saw, the first one, never happened. It was a nightmare. And the rest was answered for. Their souls faded away to nothing. Mine didn't. I'm not nothing, I was never nothing, I am yours. Look at me. You've given me so much more joy than I've ever felt pain in my whole life. They faded like the worthless things they were, and you and me live on. Look at me. Look into me, if you want to. Everything in here is joy for you. You answered it. All of it. And so much beyond."

Scotty finally managed to breathe, but it was choked and sobbing, every breath hitched; breathed, crying out, trying to curl the man above him into his body, as though he could take it all and protect it forever. "I canna... understand... it hurts... why does it hurt... if it never happened? Oh Harold. No..."

"Because you saw it. Because it felt real, and I thought it was for a long time. But it's not. It's not. It's just a nightmare. You're living in a nightmare right now. Nightmares look real. This isn't. Look." Above them, Harold manifested his equation. He thought, hoped, Scotty would be able to read it. Somehow. It pulsed blue, soft light falling on both of them. "Look. It's not there. I reworked the equation with the right variable. I'm safe. It's gone. I love you. Look."

"How?" He breathed, and let go of Harold's wrists, fingertips stained red; scrambled but didn't break skin at his shoulders, dragging at him, knees drawn up, trying to curl Harold into him, hold him, take him, protect him, save him. "Why? Why... did ye think... why... was it real." He could find no words aloud; they sounded in the air, in this no-where space.

Harold allowed himself to be pulled as far in as he could, still keeping hold of Scotty's cheeks. "If I own it, I control it, I guess. But it wasn't mine to own. Not like that. I thought it was real, because nightmares look real, and she didn't know how to tell the difference between me and that, yet. I know, now. I'm safe. I'm safe, we're safe, you gave me everything back I ever lost and the nightmare'll fade away to nothing like the souls of those bastards."

"I... love... you." Choked aloud, this time. Scotty curled himself around Harold, dragging and gripping, and sobbing. For all of it. Even for the puppet and the nightmare. Wretched, heartsick, heartfelt sound; desperate to give voice to the pain of it all, then and now.

"I love you." Harold finally released Scotty's face, winding his arms around in turn. Holding his husband tightly. "Stay with me. It's all over now. All over, and we've got each other. They watched you walk away with me, love me, give me everything, and then they faded away. I'm all right. I love you. More than life. I love you. Scotty."

Scotty couldn't reply; he didn't have any words, only tears, and the hurt consumed everything in him, every single cell of him; he could feel it, clear as day, and it covered everything; the roof, and the beach, and the grief of it all; the injustices and the loss, and it covered him, and it covered Harold, and it covered everything, but it didn't kill him. He just sobbed, whole-body.

"I love you," Harold repeated. Over and over. Sometimes spoken aloud, sometimes sung into the ether above them. He clung to his husband, his beautiful, sweet perfect Scotty that he knew had been standing unwillingly on a brink, and repeated the words until the syllables sounded strange to his ears. Still frightened. Still hoping. Tears coming, too, but no sobbing, just three words. Clinging through the sobs.

Scotty sobbed forever, it seemed, though there wasn't really time here, in this no-where space. Just cried for it all, long hours of suffering over months and months; cried for the pains and the needs and the losses and he even cried for their triumphs, because he had to, because it all lived in his soul. He cried forever; this pain deserved no less. He cried for what it was that made the nightmare, and he cried for the ramifications of it, and the only thing he didn't cry for was the monster who perpetrated the rape of a puppet, created of pain, though he cried for the puppet itself and pleaded for its peace. He cried forever, for all of it, until the pain finally started to ease into the ether where it could dissipate; a cloud of it, composed of so many things. And then, there were only silent tears, and holding on with every limb and fiber to what was left, and what was left was Harold Lee and Montgomery Lee.

Harold held through it all. Eventually, the voiceless sounding of the air took over his litany, so that he could shush. A steady stream of air, whether it pierced the sobbing, he didn't know.

"I love you." More steadily, in the dark. Ragged toned, from the screaming, and from the sobbing. "I love you."

"I love you," Harold breathed, taking his voice back. "Forever. I've got you. You're safe." His hand came back to Scotty's cheek, wiping away the tears.

"So're you." Scotty shuddered, head to toe, tears still streaming down his face, gathering where Harold's fingers rested. "I love you. I'll never let... anythin'... like this... happen again, ever."

Harold wiped those away, too. Each as they came. "I know. I won't either. I love you. I belong to you. We're safe."

"Hold me awhile?" It was whispered, an exhausted note. "We'll... be a'right. No more nightmares. Nae like this."

"Oh, god. Forever. Hold you forever." Harold shifted, moving to gather Scotty into him. If he could've gathered his husband into his soul, he would have. Relief left him near sobbing himself; this had been the brink. This had damn near been the end. He held to his husband for dear life, quite literally. "No more nightmares. Just you and me."

"You an' me." Scotty shuddered again, wrapping as much of himself around Harold as he could. "Come dream with me."

Harold nodded, manifesting the blanket over them again. Still clinging, with a small shudder, he shut his eyes and nodded once more.

Scotty was still sniffling, and crying, but the tears were clear and the aches of breathlessness and ravaged sorrows filtered back from his body; exhaustion and relief, intermingled. But he felt them, and they were his to feel. He squeezed against Harold, trying to open his own mind; to what a world looked like, after a storm, where sunlight cut gold bands through rising silver fog, and the world smelled clean and new again.

It seemed apt.