Between his hands, Laura's head exploded like a piñata.

So what were the shiny white pieces of flesh, flying between and through the blood? Another sinister gift the piñata hid? Or a piñata within a piñata?

Laura's decapitated body slumped to the side. Blood continued to spurt out.

Expanding the pool of blood that had been forming under her body, even long before....

He was unable to finish the thought.

Desmond struggled to breathe. He felt short of breath.

But not because his throat was clogged, or anything like that. But rather as if one of his lungs had directly stopped working.

As a result of that, among other things, Desmond couldn't help but start shaking.

The blood that stained his hands dropped steadily to the ground. Joining the puddle.

The blood that stained his hands dropped steadily to the ground. Joining the puddle.

It was the blood of a person who deserved to die and whose death should not be mourned. But the problem was not in her death itself. It was that she had died too soon.

That he had killed her, with his own hands. That this was his fault.

Maybe they would have made her talk or maybe not. In any case, he had killed the possibility. He had failed.

He had reached out to his savior, and had helped her by running Laura's truck off the road. But in the end he had been saved by her, again, and now this. This.

His biggest failure.

Possibly when he had been needed most by his savior, he had done something like this. Without thinking. Without being able to think. Instinct had only let go of the reins after Laura died.

Only then did he realize what he had done.

As if he hadn't been himself, for a few seconds.

That sounded like an excuse, but it had been something like that, yes.

Still, there was no room for excuses.

He had killed her. He'd ruined everything. No matter how much he thought about it, those facts wouldn't change. He couldn't stop shaking. His legs, how come his knees hadn't buckled yet?

How were his legs still able to support his own weight?

He couldn't look at his savior, even out of the corner of his eye, for fear of what he might find in the eyes of the most important person in his life.

For fear of what he knew he would find.

She had saved him, had given him a weapon, and had come back for him, putting herself at risk, everything at risk. Whereas he had repaid her with this colossal failure. He had betrayed her, practically.

He didn't deserve to ever speak to her again. He didn't deserve to even have her look at him, or to enjoy her presence again.

His legs, as if what they couldn't bear was just the weight of that terrible thought, buckled at the end.

I want to die, I want to die, die.

But, he could not die.

His savior needed him.

Laura had told him and his savior had confirmed it, the only thing lacking was to say it out loud. That he was the most important person to her.

That she needed him, to pass her "curse" to him and then finally be able to rest in peace. After who knows how many years.

Centuries.

She needed him, so she couldn't throw him away. As useless as he was, at least he could serve that purpose. She wasn't going to abandon him. He could still... he could still be with her! Definitely!

I... I...

He felt hands on his shoulders, at the same time he heard his savior crouching behind him. Not that it could be anyone else, anyway. They, right now, were only accompanied by the dead.

"Calm down. Please."

Please? She cared that he was like this, but she shouldn't care.

He'd messed everything up, and this was a very natural reaction to having screwed up so badly. She shouldn't look at him with concern, but with contempt.

She shouldn't. But he knew from the beginning that his savior wasn't a normal person.

That she was much better. She was more... more...

She had a pure soul. In a manner of speaking. Humans could be the worst. They could be cruel, violent, selfish. All that and much more.

But she wasn't.

She was... she was divine, like her appearance. Like... Like the essence she transmitted, just by her presence. Divinity. Purity.

She was what humans could be if they were not weighed down, dragged to the bottom of the sea, by the darkness of their hearts. What humans would be if they were fully human. Not in part nothing more than animals.

But even she couldn't forgive him for this, could she?

She was only saying those things because she needed to.

Ah, no, no. What was he saying? Thinking of her as being as low and dastardly as he was, only moments after reaffirming to himself how special she was.

He couldn't even be coherent.

"Desmond," she hugged him, "please. First of all, you need to calm down, okay?"

"I've killed her."

"I know."

"Without being able to give you the answers you were looking for."

"I know," she repeated. Feeling her breath on his ear, brushing the back of his neck, made him shiver as if it were something unpleasant. He was so afraid. "But that doesn't matter now. What matters is you. Only you. She's nothing but a mortal enemy to both of us. A soldier. In other words, a pawn. There are many where she came from. Many people with answers. Perhaps more than she could have given me."

Her words made perfect sense. That he could admit. But…

"Still, I messed up. Because I couldn't do something as simple as standing still and waiting. Because I'm... I'm..."

Like a rabid dog.

"I told you clearly. You haven't ruined anything. You just delayed the inevitable, me getting what I want. You don't have to feel that way. I don't want you to feel that way."

I'm so afraid. Even though she was saying such sweet things to him and sounded like she meant it, that there wasn't the slightest trace of deception in her tone, he was so afraid.

He had no luck. Things didn't tend to work out for him.

To be so convenient for him.

It was no longer a question of whether or not she would discard him. He knew she couldn't do it, as long as she needed him, and she would do it as long as she was alive because what she wanted was to die.

The question was whether she meant it. If he could really trust the goodness and the light that had guided him this far.

Ah, of course he did? What a question.

Why doubt? To answer no would be like saying that his life was meaningless. That he had wasted it pursuing something that could not be his.

Not because he wasn't worthy of it, although that too. But because it didn't exist.

The person he desired, who completed him, did not exist.

How could he say no to that question, how could he give the answer that would condemn him? Even if he was plagued by doubt, he had only one choice.

But he wasn't.

Deep down, this was nothing more than a momentary weakness, for the shock of the moment. And the smell of blood that lingered in the air.

Like the incantation of a curse, creeping in. Infecting.

But it would pass. It would all pass, and then he would realize that his greatest failure tonight hadn't been to kill Laura before her time, but to have doubted the one person he was supposed to believe in until the end.

Yes, surely that would be the way things would be.

It took him several seconds to realize that he was crying. As many others to think about how long he had been crying, without realizing it. Probably a long time. Too long.

His savior, silently, made him turn around. And, with her hands on his cheeks....

She planted a kiss on his lips.

Desmond tensed, from head to toe. His tremors stopped all at once. As if weakness had left his body. But in reality it only pulled back, beginning to take root deeper inside him.

And, really, that was the only good thing that came out of.... from this. That the tremors stopped.

His goddess, after a time that took forever, broke the kiss, throwing her head and her long hair back.

She was beautiful. She was radiant.

She looked almost, almost, as if she weren't in front of him. As if, even though he could feel her warmth, her breath, even though he could still feel her lips on his as if they had not parted, if he reached out he would only touch air. Eren's fingers passed through her as if she were a ghost.

Still, he was sure that many men would be after her. Breathing heavily, wagging their tails.

Men and women, for every human being coveted beauty in all its forms.

His savior's beauty was one that transcended even sexual orientation. Of that he was certain.

But still...

"Why did you do that?" Desmond asked in a low, trembling voice. And... yes, almost accusingly.

His goddess blinked. That was her only emotion at the extreme emotional reaction she was witnessing. Surprise and not too pronounced to say the least.

"Forgive me. I thought this is what you wanted from me."

"No, I... I..."

His goddess hugged him again, resting her chin on his shoulder.

"Mama. "Desmond let that word slip out without thinking. Once it left the confines of his mouth, even the dark corners of his mind that not even his thoughts traced, there was no turning back.

He was going to have to admit what it said about him. Accept it.

Accept the kind of person he was, and what he was really after.

Yes, that was the right word to describe how he saw her.

Not a savior, not a goddess. Not even one of the thousands of compliments he could come up with to praise her perfect beauty.

Mama, plain and simple.

Nothing more, nothing less.

All this time, I...

"Oh, I see," the woman replied, and squeezed him tighter, stroking his back as he wept and trembled in her arms. "I can do that too."

Desmond closed his eyes.