7Written for the 30kisses community on Livejournal.
All at once, the strange man's hot breath in her face. A sour smell on his breath, the same smell that was on hers.
She felt him against her, his soft, sagging flesh pressing against her hip bones. His camera clattered to the ground, and he never gave it a second thought.
It wasn't her photograph he was after, after all.
"I-I-I... I just... I want you." His lips touched her ear.
"Everyone wants me," she muttered, her hands pushing against his shoulders.
"I'll make it special."
He wasn't the first human to confront her in this manner. Come to think of it, he wasn't the fiftieth. She should have known, she realized, that he had those thoughts when he asked to take her pictures.
She should have gotten out. Or never gone at all.
He had had a card. He had looked official.
The drink was just to relax her, he had said.
She would never see him again, and he was exactly like the others, she told herself; it was just a matter of getting away from him now.
She was so tired. So tired of being a superstar.
"I'm really fine," she said, avoiding Cassie's eyes.
The Pink Ranger crossed the room and gave Karone a quick look-over. The blonde shrugged and held her arms out to show that she was just fine. Absolutely just fine.
"Where's your scarf?" Cassie asked.
"I left it there. I figured he needed it more than I did," Karone said with a half-hearted chuckle.
"I'm going to kill him. I really am," Cassie snapped, quickly turning away.
"It was fine. It happens all the time."
Cassie turned back, frowning.
"It happens all the time?!"
"Well... not all the time. It just... it's happened before."
"You mean, people... it's happened before?! When?! Who?!"
Karone sighed wearily.
"Some people. I go out and... I don't know. It's just that everyone recognizes me. Everywhere I go, they all stare. Everyone knows exactly who I am, what I've done..."
"Karone-" Cassie began.
Karone shook her head. She was not going to listen to another reassuring speech. By god, she was not going to listen to another reassuring "it's not your fault you almost destroyed the earth" speech out of Cassie. Not tonight.
"Listen, it's not a big deal. He learned his lesson. Trust me."
She sat down on the edge of the bed and ran a hand through her still-too-short hair. She could still smell him. She could still feel him.
It was definitely still a big deal.
"We have to tell somebody about this," Cassie said. "We have to tell-"
"Who are we going to tell?"
"The police! The media! Somebody! No one has the right to treat you like this, no matter what-"
"Cassie, don't," Karone whispered.
"Have you told Andros?"
"What's Andros going to do about it?"
"He's- he's got influence."
"I can take care of myself. I always have."
"Karone, what if..." Cassie shook her head. "All I'm saying is that you... you shouldn't have to think like that. Not anymore. Not here. You were going to put all that behind you. Having to fight, and having to defend yourself."
"Well, I guess I can't. Not entirely."
Cassie crossed her arms angrily.
"Oh, I saw it," Karone said suddenly.
"What?"
"I saw it in the garbage. You tried to hide it, but I saw it. The magazine."
Realization dawned in Cassie's eyes. The magazine. A trashy tabloid with an unflattering photograph of Karone taken from an obscene angle, with the words "Princess of PMS?" printed across the bottom. The article had claimed that Karone (then Astronema)'s cybernetic implants had given her constant PMS, which led to her attempt to take over the universe.
"Some asshole-" Cassie paced back and forth, "Sent that here. I don't-"
The two women fell silent.
"It's so funny," Karone said, minutes later. "When I first... you know... woke up..."
She cringed. It was what she called it, her first moments of consciousness after the final battle. "Waking up". Though technically accurate, it was a painful euphemism that managed to say both too much and not enough.
"When I first woke up," she repeated, her voice barely a whisper, "All I wanted... was for everyone to just... forgive me. And, now, I honestly don't care if they forgive me or not, I just want them to leave me alone. I just want to be... just another person."
"You never will be," Cassie said.
"I know."
"You're special. Everyone wants a piece of you. Everyone wants to tell their friends that they saw you. Everyone..." Cassie spoke as though in a trance.
"It's all the same. 'I know you don't know me, but-'. I don't WANT to know them."
"You inspire people. You give people hope."
"Fuck hope! I'm not their toy! I'm not their messiah! I'm just-"
Cassie nodded.
"You're tired. And you have every right to be. They want more out of you than you can give."
"They know everything I do. They're always quoting me, saying I said things I don't remember saying. And there are always so many questions. How can I answer them? They want to hear something specific. I never know what it is."
Her head was spinning. She closed her eyes.
And there was still that SMELL.
"I feel like never going outside again."
Cassie sat down beside her. She gently put her arm around Karone's slim shoulders and brushed the younger girl's pale forehead with her lips.
"I can't even remember half of the things-" Karone was still whispering tragic regrets.
"Let's not talk about it anymore," Cassie whispered. "You're tired."
"...Yes."
She was just like a child, Cassie mused. Just like a little girl.
Too young for so much misery.
An article in Time magazine had made the same observation last month. It had spoken of Karone's naivete, her childish ways of expressing herself; the gaping hole in her soul that longed to be filled with meaning. It had been a mostly sympathetic look at the young woman who nearly destroyed all humanity.
Being a news outlet, however, and obligated to report objectively, it had also questioned whether Karone had a right to live a normal life. An organization had sprouted up, nearly overnight, that believed that Karone should have been tried for crimes against humanity. And in its shadow, numerous others appeared, mostly on the internet, though some met in person.
"I don't believe that 'innocent little girl' bullshit," the leader of one of the smaller groups was quoted as saying. "This is the woman who held us all hostage, who sent her armies to terrorize and slaughter us. This is the woman who bombed our cities, who burned our homes. How many were lost? So she's apologized. Well, I'm standing up. I'm standing up and I'm saying 'This is not enough.' Her words are not enough."
"When I look at her, the way she is now," an angry, weeping mother was also quoted, "And she's so beautiful, she looks just like Becky, my daughter, who died in the attacks. And it's not fair. It's just not fair. Every time I see her face on the news, I want to vomit. It's just not fair."
A speech, televised on C-Span:
"She took something from you, from me. Something that can never be replaced. She did it knowingly, willingly, gleefully. But now, she regrets it. Now, she just wants a quiet life."
The speaker paused to allow the small but vocal crowd an opportunity to roar with displeasure.
"And it's what we all want, isn't it? A chance for a quiet life. Maybe some sleep. Maybe we want a day to go by without remembering how she made us feel as we watched our families and friends being rounded up, taken from their homes, brutalized by nameless men in metal suits. Maybe we want to think of our wives, our children, our parents, without remembering the stunned, pain-stricken looks on their faces as they drew their last breaths. Maybe some of us want to walk normally again, speak normally again, breathe normally again. Maybe we want to wake up to the sound of an alarm clock instead of our own screaming."
The crowd was going wild at this point, pushing, yelling. The speaker's police escorts began urging him to tone it down, he was going to start a riot.
"I'd be more concerned if I didn't start one."
And now, she was sleeping. Her dreams, as always, were troubled.
The dreams of a superstar were to be normal. Just be normal.
