A/N: This is about the Halo trilogy by Alexandra Adornetto. It's about Gabriel.
I scrub at the dishes in the sink, trying to get off all of the food from last night's dinner. Ivy hops up onto the counter next to me, swinging her feet a little and watching me. I don't acknowlege her, focusing on the task in front of me.
"Who's Lyrica?" I freeze, my whole body tensing. No one has said that name for several millenia.
I force myself to relax. "Strange name. Where'd you hear it?"
She shrugs. "I just remembered. And you are avoiding the question, Gabriel. Who is Lyrica?" The name takes me back to a sunlit meadow, the sound of birds and animals moving around and a girl's laughter the only noises breaking the silence.
I shake myself out of the trance. "I have never met a Lyrica."
"Liar." She says. "I know that you know exactly who I'm talking about."
Apparently Kratos needs to have a look at her memory again, cover up the thing that I have been hiding from her for centuries. I don't reply. "I know, because whenever I think of the name, my memory automatically connects you to it."
I brace myself against the sink, my hands gripping the counter so tightly that my knuckles are white. "What do you remember?" I ask in a low voice, looking out the small window in front of the sink.
She shrugs. "Not much. Just sunlight and a smile, and a girl's voice calling your name."
I shake my head and look at the sink, at the suds slowly finding their way down the drain. "There never was a Lyrica, Ivy."
"Another lie." She says. She pauses for a moment. "She's why you didn't want Bethany..." she trails off.
I shut my eyes. I try to fight off the memories, but they refuse to go away- Lyrica, a barbed wire trap meant for an animal wrapped around her ankle, blood staining her pale skin. Lyrica, insisting that I allow her to clean out wounds that will heal within moments. A thousand memories besides those.
"You loved her." She states it plainly, a fact. "You loved her, and something happened. Something that broke your heart."
"She died." I say quietly. I struggle to keep my voice even.
"All Mortals die, Gabriel." She sets her hand on my shoulder. "One way or another, they die."
I shake my head. "She was in a house fire. Her, her sister, her two younger siblings, and her parents. Her other sister watched with me and a few others." I fight back tears. "She told me that Lucifer would do whatever it took to get me on his side. Now I wonder if he killed her to get to me."
Ivy shakes her head. "No, Gabriel. It could have been just a normal house fire, or-"
"Ivy." I cut her off. "You were there. It was no ordinary fire."
She swallows. "When did it happen?"
I look at the granite countertop. "She died three days before the Fall."
"Seven thousand years ago?" She asks. "Gabriel! That- she-"
"I love her, Ivy. Love doesn't die when one of the pair does."
Ivy sighs. "But Gabriel. She was a Mortal girl..."
I look up at her, meeting her eyes. "A Mortal girl, but I loved her. I loved her then, I love her now, and I will forever." I look down again. "And you don't understand. I made a promise to her."
She looks at me curiously.
"I promised that I would protect her- swore that I would. I insisted that I wouldn't fail. That haunts me even now, even seven thousand years later. So you see, I really can't just get over her."
She sighs. "Oh, Gabriel."
"I know."
"And we thought Bethany had gotten herself in too deep."
