Defiance is Survival

Ch. 2

Jorgen pov

I want to break something. I left her with FM, not being able to see her face without her remembering me. It's selfish, I know. But I just can't.

I enter my quarters, shutting snd locking the door. I kick the door repeatedly, causing a ruckus.

Bam. Bam. Bam.

They did this. I know they did.

Scudding hell. I'm going to kill the delvers.

I collapse onto my bed, and I start crying silently. Everything in the past couple weeks has happened too fast. We went to Sunreach and saved Cuna from the Superioriy. We went to ReDawn and helped the UrDail, making an alliance with them. Then, we went to Evershore, found out our planet could teleport, saved Cobb and Spensa's grandmother, and made an alliance with the kitsen. And right smack in the middle of all that, i'd lost my only family members.

Cobb is still weak and unhealthy, making me the Admiral of the DDF at 19. And now, after all we'd been through, i've lost Spensa too.

I've seen every side of her personality, even the weak side. I've seen her fume and rant about her Krell, or tear up reminiscing about her father. I've seen her bravery, almost sacrificing herself in the Battle of Alta Second. I've seen her love, when she kissed me before going to Starsight. And i've seen her persevere, in the nowhere, battling loneliness and forgetfulness.

I'd always believed that she would get out alive and well. I'd always believed she'd come back to me. And now she has, and everything is wrong.

I stop crying at the sound of a knock on my door. Rubbing my eyes and brushing the white chalk off my uniform, I open it.

There stand Nedd and Arturo.

"What is it?" I ask, probably sharper than necessary.

"Is he okay?" I hear FM's voice from down the hall.

Arturo raises his eyebrows.

"I'm fine," I say, glowering.

"You sure, buddy? It doesn't exactly look that way." I turn my glare in Nedd's direction. He raises his hands in surrender.

"Like I said. I'm fine."

FM pops into the doorframe. "You do know that it's fine to not be fine."

"Yeah," Arturo adds. "And 'fine' isn't really good. We'd rather you be 'great,' or even 'good,' rather than 'fine.'"

"Even if I wasn't fine," I say, annoyedly, "I'm the Admiral. It's my job to be put together."

FM shakes her head. "Just because you're in a position of power doesn't mean you don't have emotions."

Arturo nods. "And, we're your friends. It's our job to help you out. So let us."

"There's nothing I need help with. There's nothing I can help in the first place."

Nedd looks confused, as always. FM's face softens. "What happened to her isn't your fault."

"But it is, isn't it? I'm the one who told her to go to Starsight. I'm the one who told her to do the things she did in the nowhere. How do we know it's not my fault. Exactly. We don't."

"Spensa has a mind of her own. She made her own decisions. Whether she consulted you is a different matter," Arturo says.

I glare at him again. Arturo and FM tag teaming to make you feel better is the worst if you're trying to blame yourself.

Arturo grabs Nedd's arm. "If you need anything else, we'll be in our rooms." They walk off, leaving me with FM. That's the last thing I need right now.

"I know this is hard for you." I don't say anything. "Do you want to talk about it?"

I think about it for a minute. When my parents died, I closed myself off. I didn't talk about it. I didn't think about it.

But with Spensa . . .

She's still here. It's just that the part of her that knew me is gone.

I let FM into my room, closing the door. She sits in one of the precariously placed chairs, and I sit across from her.

We sit in silence, and I realize that this isn't just hard for me. Rig, Kimmalyn, FM, Arturo, Nedd, me. We're her flight. Her friends. Maybe I was more than that. I don't know. But all that was gone now.

And it hurt everyone. Not just me.

"I'm sorry for acting this way." She looks up, surprised. "I'm being a Jerkface."

We both smile slightly. It was Spensa who had given me that name. I wonder what she thinks of me now.

"It makes perfect sense for you to feel this way," she says. "It's . . . hard."

"For lack of a better word."

She nods. "I don't know what happened to her. What I do know is that she loved you."

I just look at her, completely over the phase of denying any attraction to Spensa Nightshade. She's just too scudding amazing.

"And not in a corny, fake, teenage way. In a real way." I bury my head in my hands. "And I know that you loved her too.

"That's why you're blaming yourself. Because you feel like you've lost a piece of yourself. And you have to blame someone. You can't blame the nowhere. You can't blame Spensa. You sure as hell can blame the delvers, but that won't get you anywhere. So you blame yourself, and it kills you."

I peer through my hands at her. "I just don't know what to do," I whisper.

"I don't either. I don't know how we get her memory back. Scud, I don't even know if there is one. I don't know how to make you feel better about this, or make her feel better about this. I barely know anything! This is way out of my pay grade.

"But, do you want to know what I do know?" I just stare at her. "I know for a fact that the girl sitting in the med bay right now is confused and scared. And I know for a fact that, even though she might not know it, she is Spensa Nightshade." She lowers her voice. "And I also know that you, Jorgen Weight, are still in love with her, and deep inside her, she knows that, and she loves you too."

Scud. How is she so good with words?

"Maybe, the first step is going and talking to her, instead of sulking in your room."

I sigh. "You make me sound like a horrible person."

"Trust me. You're not. You just have emotions." She eyes me for a second, and I know what she's about to ask, but I don't stop her. "So, while you're still talking to me, do you want to talk about it?"

I shake my head. "That's all right."

"Okay. But, you know where my room is."

I nod as she gets up to leave. She closes the door with a small click. I slump down in my seat, palms digging into my eyes.

I'm sorry, Spensa.

I look at my calendar, seeing if I have anything going on. I don't, for the next hour or so.

So I make my way down to the med bay.

A/N: Here's to another chapter! Thank you for reading!