( the fireworks overhead match each booming word from alina's throat. the result is so impactful that paul is tempted to fall back into that unfeeling place of the weirding way, alive but in some statue state, but he can't focus enough to set his expression, to find the calm. instead, there's this — blatant devastation. not just that he hurt alina, that alina is hurting him, but because he ruined something of significance to alia, her very first friend. paul has had friends before, even in the fremen for brief period of time where he was the boy from the outworld and not their prophesied messiah. alia never had that option — she has always been the stranger sister of a strange man, a saint and a god, too elevated for relations with the common folk.

except, there was alina. there is alina, she's right in front of him. there is a path forward and he can see it, as clearly as he can see alina's body in the gauzy fabric of desert drapery, body in dunes, hand fisted around the star-hole heart of paul's chest. )

Alina.

( he eyes get emotively wet, but he doesn't spill his tears, doesn't lose his water. )

You've had a foot out the door this whole time, waiting for some proof that we won't work out, or that I'm overzealous with my affection. This is not that proof. I am rock solid. ( his fingers tap the center of his chest sharply. ) I have two people. I have you, and I have Alia — that's it. You want to know why I'm not jealous of the people you fuck? Because I'd never, never take away something that gave you happiness. Because if you can find something good outside of me, then you should do it — I want you do, I want to support you while you look, and do you know why I won't bat an eye? Because I have faith in us. I've never lost it, not for a day, not for a minute. I know you're it for me, I know it, and if you walk away, you'll take a part of me with you. Something I won't recover until you're back.

( when she's back. he's pretty sure she has to leave now, but the path of yellowed brick and sunbaked sand is still clear to him, even now. it seems a moot point to mention he and laia have only ever come together in this depths of otherworld too, because paul wouldn't have denied himself anywhere else either if the impulse struck. and anyway, alina is life — is the decision between happiness and duty, that choice between what is his and what has been foisted upon him, and jessica would be disappointed how easy the choice is for him to make: alina or the universe? alina, alina, alina. )

Don't do this. ( he extends a hand hesitantly out, asking for her bloodied one. knowing she won't give it. ) Please. Please don't do this.

( alina taught him love, loss, and pain. what she also taught him: how to beg for it all, anyway. )