I'd Give Up The World For You

Juliet had been wary of leaving Rukelion alone in her house but she couldn't avoid going to work. He didn't do much while she was gone. When she left he was either asleep or on her laptop and it was always the same story when she got back. 

She hadn't had time to work on editing her draft but at the very least she had been able to email the changed one to herself so she could read through it when she was on her breaks at work. It took her less than a week to do it and she almost wished she hadn't. It made her guilt shoot through the roof. 

He might have been slightly crazy but it wasn't as bad as she had feared. Daisy had been keeping him grounded after all. 

As long as she was around, he probably wouldn't have destroyed the world. He had been a good king who actually cared about the people because of the problems his men and Daisy went through with heavy taxes. 

He definitely had PTSD but that was understandable considering what he had been through. What Juliet had put him through. Seeing him struggle with his grief from his own perspective had made her realize that Rukelion Blaze was not a throwaway character. 

He was a real and very complex person who happened to cling to his wife as his one guiding light preventing him from drowning in the darkness that threatened to engulf him at times. He hadn't merely been getting by; he was actually happy with her most of the time. He could have lived peacefully with her if Juliet hadn't interfered. 

That was where the guilt came in. She had gotten someone she once considered a friend killed for absolutely no reason. 

Daisy might be back in this world now but she also might not. She might be dead for real this time. There was no way of knowing that for sure unless Rukelion managed to find her with his heat-seeking magic. 

Juliet had never written about a splinter power like that. The world she created truly had evolved on its own. Yet another reason to feel guilty. She had interfered thinking she was some sort of god who knew everything when her view had been more limited than she thought. 

Everyone she had met in Mirea had been their own person capable of making their own choices. Why hadn't she thought Rukelion could be the same? Because she hadn't liked writing him? 

It was her stubbornness and pride that led to this whole mess. Of course she was grateful it led her home but what about the people who had been left behind? 

Juliet didn't want to get what she wanted at the expense of other people's happiness. She hadn't really considered her characters as real people until now. Reading that other draft had been much like reading a diary and it was impossible not to view Rukelion as a real person now. 

She felt horrible. She had put him through so much without realizing the consequences. 

How was she supposed to know that characters she would create would actually feel things? She had always thought they were nothing more than words on paper!

She would never be able to think that again after seeing the devastating consequences of that mistake. Characters were much more complex than they seemed. Even two-dimensional ones. 

Juliet wanted to apologize but wasn't sure she would be able to without getting herself set on fire. There was one thing she could do for the pitiful man living on her couch though. 

And he truly was pitiful. Though he was working himself to death she occasionally woke up in the middle of the night when he had a nightmare because he either gasped loudly or cried for a few minutes before forcing himself to get back to work on her laptop learning everything he could about this world. 

She knew he never would have shown weakness if he knew she was awake and could see him. He hated her and rightfully so both for what he did to him as a child and her role in the destruction of the small amount of happiness he had been able to find after losing everything. 

Helping him more than she already was with adjusting to this world was impossible since he didn't want her help. And she couldn't afford a private investigator for him. All she could do was tell his story properly. 

Juliet wasn't going to edit her original draft to turn into her editor. She was going to edit the one that showed what actually happened. 

She would have to leave out her own involvement in what went down and the fact that Daisy was a transmigrator from another world. Maybe she could make it so she had been a runaway noble girl like Rukelion had originally thought she was. 

She wouldn't be able to die because of Demetria or anyone from the original group of heroes from Down in Flames either. Maybe she and the child could both die during a difficult delivery. 

All she knew was that she needed to show a more complex side to Rukelion than being a mad killing machine like in her original draft. He needed more reason to snap and burn everything to the ground. She could keep her final scene of being alone in his burning castle but instead of laughing he could be sobbing. 

It wasn't much but it was all Juliet could do to make him seem more human to the readers. She didn't exactly have time to work on her laptop since he was always using it so she began spending a few hours after work at the library working on an online copy of the changed draft. 

She finished it just before the two-week deadline Rachelle had given her and sent it off with a sense of relief. She would probably eat it up with how much emotional drama there was and how people were going to feel much sorrier for Rukelion now than they did before. 

If only they knew he might be capable of getting his happy ending after all. If he managed to find Daisy she was sure that they would be able to live in peace like they had wanted this time.

Juliet wanted that for him. He may have done a lot of bad things but hadn't she been the one who drove him to it?

She wanted Daisy to be happy too. She shouldn't have gone out like that. Her former friend loved her villain and likely wouldn't be happy without him. 

Oh, why hadn't they exchanged last names? It would have been so easy to find a specific person in Ohio. Why hadn't Juliet asked for it? She supposed it was because she never thought she would need to know that. 

At the time Daisy had already been married to Rukelion anyway so even if she hadn't been pretending to be Veronica her last name still would have been May since that was the alias he was using. It wouldn't have helped anything but it was frustrating knowing that one tiny piece of information would have made a world of difference. 

What WAS Daisy's last name? What did she look like? Was she in Cleveland or Cincinnati?

Juliet was kicking herself for not asking for more information now that she actually needed it. They had both said what state they were from but that was it. She didn't know any more than Rukelion did. 

She wished she did. What in the world was that girl up to right now? It was strange thinking that someone who had existed more years than her mentally was now physically younger than her. She had no idea how the time difference worked but it was totally weird. 

He really loved Daisy in order to not care about the age difference back in the prequel draft. He said then that all he cared about was her soul and knowing what she did now about him tracking her soul down she knew he meant it with all his heart. 

Whatever she did look like now, Juliet knew he wouldn't care. All he wanted was to have her back. That was the only thing holding his shattered psyche together right now. 

Poor sucker. She felt genuinely sorry for him. 

She had a feeling he was studying himself to death right now because he didn't want to have time to think. He hadn't been sleeping much if at all. Most mornings when she woke up he was still awake and he was always awake when she went to sleep as well. 

How much rest was he getting? It couldn't be more than three or four hours a night. And yet he was still studying full steam ahead. 

Rukelion had amazing comprehension. Far more than she had written him to have. She supposed it was a matter of personal experience.. There had been a lot of things he had to learn in order to blend in as a Mirean while trying to take revenge.