Guardian (Sequel to Fearless)

Chapter Fifty Eight

A/N -- This song was recommended to me by @lillysevillana . It is literally Hench's anthem, I believe. Also, three more days for the contest!

Renna read the name five times. With each time, her heart beat faster and faster. She looked from the parchment up to the large woman who just stared her down. Hench's lip quirked upward for a second. Renna almost didn't believe it, but it was all in the face. She surely wasn't a little girl anymore, but she was Rhalla. Rhalla who, now that Renna really looked at her, resembled Elliot quite a lot.

"You gonna say something?" the older Cricket said. "Or am I gonna have to be forced to say something cheesy and tell you that the furniture was fine where it was to begin with?"

Renna shook her head, more in disbelief than in a definitive answer. Her next word was almost so quiet that Rhalla couldn't hear it. "Cricket?"

Hench uncrossed her arms and answered in her rich accent. "Been hearing that name flying around a lot lately. Have to say I don't go by Cricket too awful much anymore. Don't quite fit the bill, I guess. But aye. Name's Rhalla." She paused. "How you doing, Aunt Renna? It's been a long damned time, hasn't it?"

Still, nothing was said on the other end. Renna just started sniffling and stumbled over to the mighty woman. It was safe to say that the frazzled woman was completely overwhelmed.

Hench chuckled, greatly touched. "Alright. Come on then." She opened her arms. Renna said nothing, just snatched Rhalla's waist with both of her arms and squeezed the breath Hench had been holding right from her lungs. Large arms encircled the old woman as well, though the embrace was both gentler and far less vigorous on Hench's side of things. She couldn't crush her aunt, after all. Rhalla shut her eyes and moved one of her hands up and down Renna's back as Renna just cried openly into her chest. They stood there for ten minutes like that.

When her aunt finally could speak, she managed to choke out. "I... thought... I'd never... see you again. I can't believe... it's actually you." The words were broken up by forceful sobs.

"I know," Hench shushed. "I know."

"I am so sorry," Renna spluttered into her niece's chest. "I should have... watched you better that night.

"Hey, none of that," Rhalla laughed softly, and the low tone of it reverberated through her aunt. "I'm here now. That's all that matters, alright?" Hench pulled Renna to arm's length and her eyes roved over her aunt's splotchy, damp cheeks and trembling body. "Alright?" A large hand wiped away the tears.

Renna met Hench's gaze. "Everything was all my fault. You don't... you don't have to forgive me. I wouldn't forgive me either."

"You're only half right," the mighty woman corrected. "I don't have to forgive you. But only because none of what happened to me was your fault. I ran away from you. But even then," Hench paused, and something clicked in her head for perhaps the first time since her kidnapping. Her next words were more to herself than to Renna. "It was my actions that night that led to my abduction. But you know what? I figure that's not even my fault either. The only ones at fault -the only ones to blame- are the men who took me away." And breakthrough. Hench almost stumbled, as if her new awareness had just come out and physically struck her. Something in this reunion had caused some dark, dusty corner in Rhalla to just heal up.

A light broke through. It was a light that diffused some of the dusk that had been a part of Hench for so long. The pain and the memories were still there bleeding in her chest, to be true. But suddenly, she, for some unfathomable reason, didn't blame herself at all for what happened that night. Because it wasn't her fault.