Title - Untainted Memories

Summary- He wants her to remember him as the guy who loved her, even if the rest of the world sees him as a villain.

A/N- First try at Covenant fanfiction. It's a Chase/OC fic and AU to the boot. Hope its decent enough. :)

Disclaimer- Do not own The Covenant or Lime Starbursts.

The first time he sees her is when he's driving around trying to think and she's walking on the sidewalk, carrying a heavily wrapped bundle with no protection from the impending rain. He thinks it's a sense of chivalry that makes him stop. Or maybe it's because she looks so waif-like walking on the road with a heavy bundle. And he has a predilection for saving/helping the lost ones.

"May I offer you a lift?" he asks leaning out of the window of the car.

"Uh, no thanks," she says politely, walking slightly faster.

He chuckles inwardly because far be it from him to have any nefarious designs on young teenage girls. He prefers them to come into his arms willingly.

"It's going to rain buckets," he says pointing out the obvious.

She looks like she's gonna take her chances with that when the first drop of rain falls and changes her mind. He opens the passenger door and she climbs in, voicing a grateful thanks. Under the faint light of the car, he sees a slight girl, with brown hair and a smooth oval face with a slight smile.

The bundle moves and he's a little startled. The girl removes the jacket covering it and turns out to be a little girl. This seems to be a little out of the ordinary. Somehow he never thought that the bundle would turn out to be a child. And an extremely cute little girl at that, who's gazing at him with bright eyes. And a toothy smile which will blossom into a sunny beautiful one someday. And later on he will think, she got it from her sister.

"Nice kid you've got there," he says awkwardly.

"Thanks, it's my little sister," she grins at him.

His sigh of relief is almost imperceptible, he doesn't know why though. He says his apologies but she waves them off with a gentle smile.

He learns that she's new in Ipswich and slightly disappointed with the heavy fog that's always hanging over it. She likes the sun and enjoys the rain but doesn't like only the rain. Her flow of talk is steady and gentle and has some sort of a rhythm to it. He listens, finding it peaceful.

She gives him directions to her house and after a while the kid takes over her attention. And though he doesn't know the first about being a sibling, he can see that she adores the little girl and the little girl adores her in equal measure.

He reaches her house and steps out with an umbrella. He quickly goes to the passenger side and she steps out with the child once again securely wrapped, in her arms.

He leads her to the front porch and waits there until she goes in. she thanks him once again profusely and he waves it off. And only after she goes in does he realize that he doesn't even know her name.

And that around him now hangs the faint trace of jasmine. He inhales deeply liking the combination of jasmine and rain.

There's something very fresh and uplifting about it.

Softly humming he makes his way back to car, pausing just once to see the shadow of a girl moving against the curtain.

He then gets into his car and drives away.

:

He's at school and doesn't really like it because there are too many pretty girls who keep throwing himself at him. But he has a job to do, that is scout out the four sons of Ipswich and if that means hanging with the popular crowd he'll do it.

Most of the times he maintains a calm exterior but sometimes the urge to use his powers is overwhelming. Because using them makes him feel powerful and fills him with a rush like no other. It's a heady rush and it makes him feel so fucking good. Almost invincible.

But using the powers only draws attention so he holds them in, letting them smolder and simmer.

Truthfully speaking he doesn't think much of the sons of Ipswich. The covenant denied him a legacy and gave them one. He feels wronged and cheated. But the thought of taking all of their powers is the one that keeps him going.

Because one day he'd be powerful beyond measure and they will nothing more than the dust beneath his shoes.

With these thoughts in mind he befriends them and cultivates relationships.

:

His days are filled with mind numbing boredom because while he can set things in motion, the consequences take a longer time to appear.

He considers letting the whole thing go because sometimes secrets make you immeasurably lonely and he's only human.

And then he sees her and it honestly feels like the sun is shining again.

He walks up to her and greets. She's surprised to see him but she looks happy too and he feels that the metaphorical sun is shining brighter.

He looks at her up close and notices things that he never did in the car. She has cloudy gray eyes, soft brown hair and rosy cheeks. She's the kind he'd label as wallflower pretty. But it's also the kind of pretty he likes.

He spends lunch with her and discovers a bit more about her. Her name is Alice Riverton and she's a senior at Spenser's. She's not in his classes but they share the same lunch break.

And inexplicably he finds himself spending time with her every lunch break, trying to draw her out of her shy shell. And he manages to an extent because she opens up and speaks drawing out information about him that he never meant to divulge in the first place. But with her he knows it's going to be okay because he knows she's the kind who keeps a secret. And already he knows he would trust her.

He somehow feels a connection with her because when he's with her he doesn't have to portray a persona. He can just be himself even if he cannot tell her what his real background is.

So he fabricates a life which he wishes he had and feels all the more guilty when she trusts him with a few more things like the absence of her father and the dreams she has for herself and just how much she loves her little sister.

But there's nothing he can do about it. He already has a path laid out before him and now he's in too deep to stray off of it. But at least he has someone to stem the overwhelming tide of loneliness, if not for ever, at least for a while.

All this while he still maintains a semblance of friendship with the Ipswich sons who though don't include him in their little clique, are slowly warming up to him.

Everything's working wonderfully well, yet there's a growing reluctance in him which is only diminished by letting go.

And God does it feel like a dirty little secret.

So good yet so so wrong.

:

Sometimes he dreams of her. He sees her standing at a distance waiting for him. But the closers he gets the further she moves. And all the while she's calling out something. But it's so faint he cannot hear.

And after a few nights he realizes she's whispering the word 'lies' over and over again. And guilt shoots through him like a burning flame. When all of this is over, he'll come clean. He'll tell her everything. And she might hate him but she deserves to know.

And if everything doesn't work out and then at least she'll never know the other despicable side of him. It's a somewhat comforting thought, knowing that someone else's thoughts of him will not be tainted by his lies and deception.

:

Today is one of those days he doesn't feel like talking to anybody. So he just sits near the steps and watches everyone go by. To be specific he watches her. She's talking to some other boy and when she notices him watching she sends a smile his way.

He smiles back and wonders why his heart starts thudding faster. Something it has been doing every time he sees her now. It's a new feeling thinking of some one other than himself in affectionate terms. It's scary, because he feels like he's making himself vulnerable here. He's been trying to stifle the urge to care but he's fighting a losing battle. In the end he gives up because it's impossible not to care for her.

Besides sometime he can imagine she cares for him too and it takes the ache of loneliness down a notch or two.

:

There's now only a month left to the Danvers boy's ascendance and he can feel himself twitching with nervous anticipation, when something epic happens in his life.

On a school day, under the stairwells he kisses her. He knows he's wanted to for a very long time but something kept holding him back. But he knows the time is right when she asks him what matters the most in his life. The answer is only her because she's the only thing in his life that seems to have concrete meaning.

He means to kiss her very gently but once he feels her soft lips against his and his fingers weaving in and out of her soft hair, he deepens the kiss and he vaguely feels that this is heaven should feel like.

She tastes like his favorite candy, Lime Starbursts, sweet and sour at the same time.

He draws away from the kiss because for the first time in his life he's this close to losing his mind.

She looks flushed, and a pretty pink hue slowly spreads from her cheeks to neck and her eyes are even more clouded that usual.

She looks so pretty and sweet and lovely that he can't help but draw her close to him again.

But this time she is the one that draws back looking at him with a soft questioning gaze. And he knows she's asking if this is just fun and games.

"Forever," he whispers because that's the way he wants it to be with her.

There's a voice screaming in his head asking him not to get involved. But his heart rebelliously fights back asking him to live and breathe and love her.

And in the end it is his heart that wins.

:

The days after the kiss are the happiest he has ever known in his entire life. And if you ask him, he'll tell you his thoughts are colored with every color of the rainbow.

But all happiness is brief isn't it? He knows and she knows too. And they go on ignoring it until it becomes an elephant in the room.

And the day before the Danvers boy's ascendance, he realizes he has to tell her something, just incase something happens. Because he's filled with a foreboding that something big involving him and Danvers is about to go down.

So as he sits in his dorm room with her in his arms, his lowers his face into her neck and mumbles an 'I love you'. A part of him wants to hear her saying it back and another part of him doesn't want her to say anything, because he's afraid the answer might be what he's dreading.

But she lifts his head up, cups his face in her hands and looks him straight in the eye and tells him, "I love you."

It's such a bittersweet moment and wishes that he didn't have to go and do what he has to do.

But it's his path. He chose it and there's no backing out at the eleventh hour.

He takes her home, all the while holding her hand. And when he finally reaches her doorstep, he cannot bring himself to say goodbye.

But there's a soft sheen in her eyes which tells him, she knows its goodbye too.

Is this closure, he bleakly wonders.

Because this isn't the kind he wants. He's not ready, and every pore in his body screams it. He wants to wait awhile and savor the moments, lie in the weak sunlight with her in his arms and dream of a future where she stands next to him, hand in hand.

So he tells himself, he's coming back.

Instead of saying goodbye, he tells her he loves her. And ignores the fear that wells up inside and the hopelessness that consumes her eyes.

He then turns and walks away, lonelier than ever before. It feels like his past has finally caught up with him. Except he doesn't feel as happy as he thought he would be.

Fate has a funny way of giving you what you want and not what you need.

:

He goes into the fight giving it his all. But in the end Danvers proves to be much too strong for him and he feels his body pulled apart in a million different directions, hot needle like jabs of pain erupting all over it, the fire consuming every bit of him.

But then a peace settles over him and she floats into his vision. Unlike his dreams, he's able to reach her and hold her.

But one thought bothers him, he couldn't go back. But at least this way, she'll never know and her memories of him won't be tainted by his deeds.

And maybe she'll even come to his grave and lay a bunch of pure white lilies and weep over him and whisper that she still loves him. It looks like an idealsitic black and white image, from an old film or a prized painting but then again, she's always been precious. And she will always be his ideal. His everything.

:

It's not the way he imagined things would be but he's fine with this version too.

And he'll watch over her from above in the limbo that he exists and hope that her memories of him will always stay the same and that she finds someone who deserves every lovely bit of her.

He doesn't know if what he wants will happen. But he hopes it will.

Because in the end, even in death, its hope that keeps us going and its hope that keeps the spark alive.

Because it's all that we have.

A/N- I tried to follow the story line as much as I could but it's been a while since I watched the movie so I am way off tangent in some places. Also a small heads up, since it's from the POV of Chase, I didn't think he would justify any of the things he did. I felt that as far as he was concerned, he thought the Covenant did cheat him out a legacy.

Anyhow do review and let me know how bad it was. I'm always open to suggestions for improving. :)