The touch of her fingertips had a visceral reminder in it, a reminder of the things that hate could do to the unwary. Unwary. Maybe he had been unwary. He'd let the feeling infect him, control him, manipulate him. The feeling and by extension her. Sooner or later the tangled web that he found himself at the center of, fading fast, would unravel. And he would understand his part in it, acknowledge it. Understanding was coming to him but it was coming in waves. Bits and pieces of information that were meaningless until he connected them to something else. That was where he started, then. What he'd done, what he'd felt, what he'd given himself over to. The hate. It had led him to this place, until he had lashed out at it and... at her. It wasn't all for her, even if he'd told himself that at the time.
Even if he'd believed it at the time.
There was something deeper at work in his chest. One of those connections that he'd told himself he had to form. it was there, living and breathing inside of him. Akheron stared at what he could see of her and drank in the sight. Glorious in her reticence to touch him, to feel what he felt. She reveled in it but she hated it. That contradiction was always there, always between them now no matter what one or the other might do. He had lived the contradiction with her, even for such a short time, and he understood it now as he never had before. He didn't share his hate. He'd told her that, too. Just then he would have shared her with the entire world if he could just have that feeling, that sensation, for one moment longer. The knowledge that she was near. That she understood. That she would not force upon him false words of sympathy.
"Zelos and Nike were there," he told her quietly. "But it was Kratos that did this."
A smile, twisted and foul.
"He hits very hard, your son. Something to admire."
And the connection was made at last as one more piece of irrelevancy fell away. He had done this to her, and he regretted it with every fiber of his being, and... what else was there to say but that? Those contradictions, all of them were alive in that moment, drawing him closer to her and repelling him in the same instant. He wouldn't have it any other way.
"I'm sorry. For what I did. I know... I know it was what you wanted, but I still regret it."