Scara Rose, The Warrior

Chapter 41

Scara's pov

"Well that was..." Chris starts.

"Babe, I can think of a lot of words that could finish that sentence."

He comes up and wraps me in a tight hug.

"I love you."

"I love you too," he says, pulling back, "I've really missed you."

"I missed you too," I say, caressing his cheek with unshed tears in my eyes, "so, so much."

Chris leads us to the couch and we sit.

"I understand if you're not ready, but you should probably talk about it at some point."

"About what?"

"What you went through. Scara, you died and went to the Underworld."

I take a deep breath and shut my eyes to try and block out the memories. I just got my future back, I don't want to relive the past.

"There's not much to talk about."

"Rose, it doesn't take a profiler to see that it's more than you're letting on to. I get it if you need more time to process it, but know that I'm here. I've always been here, and when you're ready I'll still be here. Nothing can make me love you any less."

I smile at his gesture.

"I'll tell you. I just haven't fully processed everything that has happened, well today. I woke up this morning in the Underworld and now I'm here. Today has been extremely long day."

Chris nods for me to continue.

"It's weird. You know you're dead, but other than your heart not beating, you don't feel like it. You can still feel physical pain, and in a way can still die. The River of Souls is like the only way the dead can 'die,' but still. You also don't really have anything to do, so you have a lot of time to just sit and think. I would sit around and just think about everything that I left behind and everything I had."

Chris takes my hand and lightly squeezes it.

"Your family mentioned something about Hades punishing you."

I take a deep shaky breath. Chris lets go of my hand so he can drape an arm over my shoulders and pull me closer.

"Yeah um Hades, he didn't exactly like people who he considered to be a hero or did good things. It wasn't anything I hadn't felt before, but it would go on for like hours. He also made sure to do it every day."

Chris and I both have tears going down our faces, but I continue anyway.

"The worst ones were when I helped people down there. If I saw a way to help someone move on, I did and was punished for it. The worst time was when I beat up my dad's twin brother, and saved Emma and Robin. I've never seen him look so angry."

I have tears streaming down my face at this point. Chris wipes them away and pulls me into my chest. He holds me tight as I cry till I can't cry anymore.

When my tears are gone, Chris gently pulls away and puts a loose strand of hair behind my ear. Chris smiles and I smile back.

"I promise you," he says seriously, "I won't ever let anyone hurt you again."

I smile as I lay my head back down on his chest. He wraps his arms around me and just holds me.

After a little while, Chris gently picks me up off of him and I sleepily look up to him. He just chuckles at my drooping eyes.

"I'm going to get some of your clothes from garage," Chris says softly.

I nod as he carefully detangles himself from me and leaves quickly. This is the first time we have been apart since I got back. Thankfully he's gone for only a minute.