Chapter 13

(Later that day)
Noble: Oh s**t, I forgot to tell Julian to meet us here.
Juno: Well it’s been seven months, you think he still wants to join us?
Noble: I don’t see why not.
Noble calls Julian
Julian: Hello.
Noble: Dude it’s me. You still up for it?
Julian: Of course.
Noble: Alright, leave for Tokyo today.
Julian: Sure.
Noble hangs up
Juno: Wow, he has patience.
Noble: Yeah a lot more than he had when we were younger.
Juno: I see.
Noble: Hey Charlene!
Artemis comes out of her room
Artemis: What’s up?
Noble: Come with me to the store later, we’re running low on food.
Artemis: Sure.
Artemis walks back in her room and starts getting dressed
Artemis: Allie! Let me borrow your black leather jacket?
Minerva: It’s in my closet.
Artemis: Ok.
She finds it and puts it on
Then she puts on a pair of jeans and a pair of Converses
She walks out of her room
Noble: Wow, I haven’t seen anybody wear Converses in a long time.
Artemis: Because we’ve been living a really fast paced and deadly lifestyle.
Noble: True.
Noble: Alright let’s go.
Artemis and Noble leave the Hotel
They start conversing while they walk
Artemis: So Yaz, I hear you knocked up Britt.
Noble: Yes I did. Unintentionally though.
Artemis: So how did it start?
Noble: Uh it's pretty simple, while I was refreshing her memory on how to fight we started to kiss.
Artemis: So how did you guys hit it off in South America?
Noble: Well we shared a bed and the rest is history.
Artemis: I see.
Artemis: Do you love her?
Noble: Of course.
Artemis: Are you sure?
Noble: Let's put like this: I love all of you equally, it's just Brittany had my eye and I acted on it.
Artemis: Alright.
They walk into a local store and buy a lot of canned, frozen and baby formulas for the baby.
Noble: I think this should hold us over for a few months.
Artemis: It better we can't afford to run out of food.
Noble: True that.
They leave the store and head back to the hotel
When they walk through the front door of the hotel, Noble tells Takashi to keep an extra eye out for any possible intruders
They go to the top floor and put everything away
Minerva: How much did you f*****g buy?
Artemis: Enough.
Minerva: Jesus!
(Nightfall)
Noble is having another sleepless night
He walks out onto the balcony again and stares at the sky
Athena gets out of bed and walks over to him
Athena: Another sleepless night?
Noble: Yeah, I think it's getting worse.
Athena: What is?
Noble: The battle stress AKA Post traumatic stress disorder.
Athena: Oh I see.
Noble: Yeah. I don't see how the others including you can keep it under control.
Athena: Well I haven’t really seen anything that bad except you shooting that woman.
Noble: True.
Noble: Wait what about the torture thing?
Athena: I got over that mighty quickly.
Noble: Oh.
Athena: Well what’s wrong that your PTSD reaching the surface?
Noble: I guess it’s because I’ve been away from fighting for a while and I’ve had time to look back at what’s happened.
Athena: Well what happened in the past.
Noble: Like any war, you do things that are necessary but go against your convictions and what you wouldn’t normally do.
Athena: Well what did you do back then?
Noble sheds a tear
Noble: I killed women and shot kids.
Athena: What!?
Noble: I had no choice.
Noble: It was either me or them
Athena: So you chose them?
Noble: What choice did I have? It’s self-defense, kill or be killed.
Athena: But you killed kids!
Noble: Not trying to say what I did was right but there are tons of kids in Africa that are trained to kill and most succeed want to know why?
Athena: Why?
Noble: Because, the average person wouldn’t shoot a kid even if they were holding a gun.
Noble: Could you do it?
Athena: Well no.
Noble: Exactly. Now put yourself in my shoes, I had the mental capacity to do that and brush it off now… I can’t do that anymore.
Noble: I don’t expect you to look me the same way again or even believe you had a child with me because of what I’ve done but know this, I will always protect you.
Athena: I won’t look at you differently.
Noble: Really?
Athena: Of course. As long as you don’t do any of that now then we’re ok.
Noble: Okay.
Athena hugs Noble and kisses him on the cheek
Athena: Come back to bed when you’re done.
Noble: Okay.
Shortly after Noble goes and checks on Artemis and the others
He sees they’re all soundly asleep and leaves
He joins Athena back in bed and goes to sleep