Everything Louder than Everything Else

So, crazy bitch (the Morrigan) tasked us with resealing the Eye. We have a year and a day. Also, I started keeping a list.
I knew the Eye had to wait at least until after Chicago and Berkeley, and I'd asked Gunnar if we would put off the wedding for it. His answer, the answer I was hoping for, was, "Nope."
But I have to wonder if I'm being selfish. My life, lately, has consisted of a bombardment of important shit to do, each new thing seemingly taking priority over the other. Squeaky wheels, each louder than the last.

For example, my "to do" list as of this moment consists of, in no particular order:
Go be of whatever assistance I can to the kids. I realize that it might be too late, by now. My home might also no longer exist.
Bust Marie Glapion out of Guinnee. Also, get scuba gear.
Plan a (hopefully titan- and conflict-free) wedding.
Actually have aforementioned wedding. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
Do all I can to find time for a honeymoon, or a vacation, or just a span of a few uninterrupted days where I don't have to spend all day fighting the plague or on a plane or planning a funeral or fighting titanspawn.
Do the research to figure out how to reseal the Eye of Balor.
Reseal the Eye of Balor.
Solve those MENSA murders and punish those responsible.
Get back the black feather shroud?
Find Kane. Kill him, if possible.
Keep my promise to Aziza about finding out what happened to her and punishing those responsible.
Keep an eye out for Pan, because fuck that guy.
Check in on Luc.
Get my car back from New Orleans.
Make sure Gunnar's mom is going to be mentally ok, which will probably be an ongoing process.

Speaking of, Jack was surprised when he heard I was coming to Chicago, even after I knew that the kids were in trouble. My sister is in trouble. Just kinda proves how little he knows me. I promised Gunnar my help and I don't break my promises.
Still, this hardly seems like the appropriate time to even be pursuing a relationship, let alone planning a wedding. Like maybe that shouldn't even be on my list of priorities. But it's the brief flickers of normal life that have kept me motivated enough to deal with all of the other weird shit.
Like, the questions I asked myself in the days before the battle of Mag Mel were: Do I fight with the infantry or the archers? Do I act as a commander or a medic? Am I sure that's the dress I want? What did Nate do to piss Cordelia off? Are the kids enjoying their Spring Break? Can I help Manannan Mac Lir get his eyesight back? Sunflowers or peonies and does Gunnar care? How many Fomorians is this trap going to kill? Is Gunnar ok? How much longer do I have before Erzulie sends the next goon to fuck with my head? Will we have time for a honeymoon? Where would we even go? How many Fomorian troops are we up against? Am I going to survive this long enough to help Gunnar get his mom back safely? Am I going for anything more than moral support? On that last, yes. I'm going in case Victor's done something stupid and she needs expert medical care.
And so on.

But when we were heading back to Mag Mel from Dublin, I was feeling like the world was falling down around me and like we might be heading towards certain death (spoiler, only not really: we lived!) and just before we jumped off the cliff he stopped. He pulled out a ring and proposed all proper like, which really caught me off guard, and...
And I knew then what mattered. Maybe not what takes priority, but what makes all the other priorities significant at all. What makes prioritizing bearable. I understood, finally, the answer to a question I've been asking myself since January: "Why am I even fighting this war?"
And I hate war, for the record. It runs counter purpose to what has pretty much been my life's work. Also, I don't think I'm any good at it, the war thing. That one time I tried being a warrior didn't work out so well for me. I haven't talked about it much, not even really to Gunnar except for the bare details, to let him know it messed me up. I saw children killed and women raped and I have scars from the encounter, scars he's seen now. I don't even think I told him about the fire. But I feel like I can really talk about it now, all of what happened and the numbers and such. I mean, we've been through so much else since then.
I watched about two dozen people die that night. Nine children. Six women. Nine soldiers. I took eight shots in my left side from an automatic weapon. I fell face down, my own blood pooling underneath me and coagulating in my hair and on my face. I was spit on and kicked in the ribs, two of them broken on my right side. Then the house in which I thought I lay dying was set ablaze and like burning buildings do, it started to collapse. On me. I was pinned, stuck staring at the faces I couldn't help as the skin blistered and peeled and sloughed away, with the smell of my own blood and burning people filling my nose. Children and mothers and sisters and brothers and husbands and wives and lives that were nothing... anymore...
Besides over.

I hate war.

So... why can't I walk away from this one?
The thought did cross my mind, briefly, after I shot Marie. It was already too late then, I'd already started to fall and hard. But that's when I thought about it, walking away. I'm not a killer and I don't want to become one. Not the coldblooded kind Jack seems to think I am. And for the record, he's wrong about that. Marie was not helpless or disabled. What I did to her was no different than what Jack did to Caleb, I just did it with my eyes instead of my muscles.
And a similar thought crossed my mind again when I was in the hospital with Nate, not that I could walk away but that I was now so far beyond the point where that was an option.
But it wasn't clear until I was standing at the Cliffs of Moher. Gunnar held out that beautiful and perfect ring, which I have no idea when he had time to get, and he said the words, "Laurel Angela Kladakos, will you marry me?" and it clicked. I knew why I can never walk away from this war. In so many words, it's him.
I know he's in this thing, this vague and probably interminable war, until the end. Whatever that end is.
I don't want him to have to do it alone, is what it ultimately boils down to. He could, I'm pretty sure. He's strong and determined and capable and brilliant, moreso than he thinks.
But this shit can wear on a person. I've seen the fatigue in his eyes, after Vegas and after Tim's death; it's a spiritual fatigue which I understand now that it's happened to me. I've seen that list he carries and I've guessed at what he's worried about becoming. If I've guessed right, it's the same thing I worry about.
I hate war because it can make you crazy. I mean, I had a lot of options that night in Afghanistan. I could have bled to death, I could have asphyxiated from smoke inhalation. I could have burned to death. I could have been crushed by the collapsing building. I picked crazy, instead. I've been there, done that and got the tshirt, only without the tshirt part.
I'm pretty sure I can safely say that it's only going to get worse from here. But Gunnar's done a pretty fantastic job of keeping me sane, helping me put my head back together. I aim to do all I can to manage the same for him, when he needs it.
And to that end, I'm okay with being selfish. That's why I'm in this war, and that's why I can't walk away.

"I ain't in it for the power
And I ain't in it for my health
I ain't in it for the glory of anything at all
And I sure ain't in it for the wealth
But I'm in it 'til it's over and I just can't stop..."
Meat Loaf, Everything Louder than Everything Else