The Truth (Aqua)

Aqua was scared. Terrified even. She was finally telling Riku everything. About her. About Terra. She wanted to prove to him that she trusted him. It seemed that everything Terra had done was coming full circle. Now Riku was paying the consequences for whatever she and Terra had done to peeve off this demon, one she knew she only met once. She took a shaky breath. He had a right to know. She had unintentionally dragged him into this after all. But seeing him there, at the park, there before her. She gave a weary smile.

"Hey, Riku." she greeted. "Thanks for meeting me here."

Aqua nodded. Her heart really wasn't in it, but she had told herself that she had to stop running from the past. She had to face it head on or it would consume her and everything else around her. She was just afraid this would change how Riku viewed her. He probably already thought she was a lousy partner and that he had drawn the short stick when they were assigned together, but this might make things worse. She had no way of telling until she actually did it.

"Well, yes." she confirmed. "It's... personal really. It's... about my old partner. You should - you have the right to know what happened with that."

"Yeah," she confirmed.

It was a long and drawn out story. She couldn't help a weak laugh over the 'ears' joke. At least he kept a silver lining about the whole situation. At least one of them could look at the bright side. She took a deep breath. She could do this. She had to do this. She promised herself that she would not back down and would tell Riku everything. Her heart was racing. Maybe with those new ears of his, he could even hear it? She certainly hoped not. But she joined him on the bench. At first, she kept her gaze down. Her hands tightly clenched her knees, to the point where they were white knuckled and likely to leave bruises.

"Terra was a senior officer when I was assigned as a ride along officer. Like you were to me. At first I thought he didn't like me." she explained. "But his last partner was a werewolf. Killed in the line of duty. He was... scared of getting me killed. Blamed himself because he was human, you know?"

It was the whole human thing. Not strong enough. Not fast enough. Not good enough to save his partner. Aqua reassured him time and time again, a silver bullet to the head was a sure fire way to kill a werewolf. Human or not, there was no saving his partner in that situation unless he was psychic and could have foreseen the shot. Which he wasn't so Terra's arguments had become moot at that point.

"Terra was just human though. No powers. No special abilities. I guess in a way, what I was scared him," she said. "Because even a non-fatal injury could become fatal for me if an iron weapon was used."

A tiny slash from an iron blade or an iron bullet could spell her demise. She supposed after watching his last partner die by a silver bullet, it left Terra a little paranoid. He had treated her like glass, afraid to let her get too close to 'action' or combat as it was. He didn't want to risk her wings getting damaged in a fire fight because the department (at the time) didn't have a healer like Sunshine. No magic potion or spell would have saved her in the field if that were the case.

"After a while we got close." she continued before clearing her throat. "Really close."

"No." she said softly, trying to keep the hurt out of her voice. "Terra... did some really bad things when he was in the department. A dirty cop. And then one day, he vanished without a word to me or anyone else."

Bad as in blackmail and extortion. Those were only the ones she knew about. She had been put on trial, had her badge threatened to be taken from her, all because they thought she was the same as him. So after that, she swore off a lot of things. She swore off romance. Never allowing her heart to get that open to anyone out of the fear she would get hurt again. She swore off trusting anyone but herself, for the same reason. She lost all of her former friends because of the fall out of Terra's actions. Her name had been no better than mud in the department. So she got used to working alone. Better to be alone, than get used again, she had reasoned.

"Seelie faeries can't lie. You ask me something and I can talk around it, avoid the question or give a half truth. But I cannot tell you a lie." she said. "Humans lie. Terra lied. You could lie."

She had been trying to protect herself. Keep herself safe from getting hurt again. She had no feelings for her partner, just the trust she had been trying to build again from the ground up. He was a nice guy despite everything she had put him through.

"My reputation is already ruined. In the human world and in the faery courts." Aqua said. "So I understand if you want a new partner. B-Because you worked really hard to get here. You shouldn't be punished because of me and Terra."

Humans and Others a liked distrusted her in the BPD. She had worked alone up until Riku was assigned to her. It would probably hurt, going back to that sort of lifestyle. She had gotten used to having someone watching her back on cases again. But if people were treating him badly, it would make it hard for him to be the best cop he could be. She knew she wasn't a dirty cop and Riku believed her but there would be no convincing the humans outside of the Others Unit. They just thought she found a way around the faery code.

In the faery court, she was considered weak. A freak. Love or very strong bonds of friendship were considered servitude. Aqua had done what the faery court frowned upon, she fell in love with Terra. She thought that because her parents fell in love, perhaps she could too. Instead, all she got was heartbreak. She tried to go back to the ways of the faery court, shut down, be kind but never attached, but humans were so difficult to work with and not grow fond of.

"But this is your chance to start over!" she insisted, almost near tears. "Vanitas is already after me. I can't lose another partner, Riku. I just can't."

It would probably kill her if something happened to Riku. He had been a good friend, even with her fighting his kindness every step of the way. He would have made a good Seelie faery, if he had been born into the court. Noble. Kind. Caring. Considerate. But he was almost infuriatingly stubborn. A trait she often associated with humans. Once his mind was made up, that was it, but she had to at least try to convince him to think of himself for once, of his career and how hard this would make it for him to really make the difference he wanted to make.