"I'm not leaving. Not right now and not later." She reiterated firmly, just so he could be sure that she really wouldn't. Lux shook her head at what Troy said next. "Why would I? Everybody feels things and I'd rather you do that than pretend you're okay just so my little womanly fragile self can feel safer next to her big bad-ass boyfriend. You don't need to be a bad-ass right now, and I don't need you to be one either." She kissed him again, and then whispered in his ear, "My feelings for you haven't changed just because something horrible happened to you. You were there for me, now I'm here for you. And I still think you're amazing and I still think you're sexy as hell and I'm still really fucking thankful that someone like you feels the way you do about me."
That self-hatred he seemed to be feeling, Lux was familiar with it by miles. She shook her head. "It was a monster, Troy, a violent half dead super-strong monster. You probably did your best, I bet you did, but still I mean the scales were pretty damn tipped." She wondered if this was the best thing to say at a time like this, but what else could she say?! "You've protected me from myself plenty of times my whole entire life. That has to count." It wouldn't, she knew it wouldn't. She knew what he meant because when she'd been bitten in that god-forsaken forest she'd trained for situations like that before, and she was strong and a police officer, a fucking homicide detective - and it had made no difference, none at all.
Hearing Troy speak like that about himself made her almost as mad as she was at the monster who'd done this to him. "No. No you're not. I can't actually put into words just in how many ways you're not a failure, Troy, but trust me." She grabbed his hand in hers, entwining their fingers and pulling it to her chest. "Remember all those doubts I had about you? How I wondered how you could want to be with me? You sound like me right now. I'm a goddamn fluffy monster, Troy, I don't need you to protect me from vampires. And hey, do you know how many people die in attacks like what happened to you? Better yet, do you know how many people die in attacks from perfectly human perpetrators? You survived!" She was almost as bad at this as she was at 'romantic talk' but she was really trying. "By the looks of the dojo you didn't exactly give up easily or at all. And you survived, and you're here, and you don't need to protect anyone right now. You need to heal. That's what we do when we're hurt, inside and out."