Go My Way 12

Her fingers were freezing. For a moment or two, as her mind drifted out of the dark water and back into conscious thought, she thought they were gone entirely until she realized someone was rubbing them. She blinked a few times. What in the world—?

"Kid?" After a moment, quietly, "Shilo?"

She made herself open her eyes. Her father had once told her about the effects of positive reinforcement, and she had to respond to that, or Graverobber would never stop calling her "kid." Or "sweet cheeks." She shuddered, and then she couldn't stop. She was so cold! And wet, couldn't forget wet. What—?

The memories slammed into her stomach, and suddenly she had to fight for every breat— but fight she would, yes indeed. She had never been this angry in her life, and that was saying something. "I'm— " gasp, "going— " gasp, "to— " gasp, "kill you!" She reached for him, her hands searching for something, anything, to slap, but he grabbed her wrists and pulled her arms around his waist. Her anger popped like a soap bubble in a sudden gale, and whatever horrid insult she was going to throw at him was suddenly out of reach.

"Geeze, kid, you'd think you didn't know how to say thank you," said Graverobber, folding his arms around her. She realized she was wearing his jacket, but she was still freezing—her dress was hardly more than a slip. As though he sensed this, one of his hands started rubbing her back in small, hard circles. The friction was blissful.

But she was still mad, dammit. "You could have warned me," she muttered, her face pressed somewhere between his chest and his shoulder.

"Would you have jumped?" Shilo frowned, but he had a point: under the circumstances, it was the only thing he could have done. But still! She tugged at the bottom of his shirt with a little noise of agitation. Graverobber sighed, and it came from somewhere deep within his caverns and hidden places.

Lifting her head so she could see his face, she frowned. His eyes were sad, but in a quiet way. Resigned, that was the word. But behind all that there was a spark like a hidden ember, like the one or two true smiles he'd shown her. Like that kiss. "For the record," he whispered, "I am sorry. I shouldn't have done that."

"No, you damn well shouldn't have," said Shilo, but her voice was calmer. He opened his mouth, but Shilo shot him a dirty look, and he closed it with a hint of his usual smirk tugging at his lips—but it wasn't his usual smirk, because he wasn't trying to use it to intimidate her or anything stupid like that. "It doesn't matter which incident you're referring to—it all applies. But I accept your apology." Suddenly disquieted, she rested her head back against his chest. "…Did you mean it?"

His other hand came up to her hair and began to stroke, gently. "I don't break my promises," and he hesitated a little, "Shilo."

"That's better," Shilo murmured. "Stick with that, and we'll get along just fine." She smiled; she was still very tired, but she was warmer now, and, for a moment or two, the last few weeks—the entire period of time since her father's death, if she were to be honest—were all okay.

"Come on,"  he said after a moment. "Let's get moving. That won't have thrown them off for long."

O-o-O-o-O

He took them back to his place simply because he had no other ideas. There was nowhere else he could take her in the city, not with her half-asleep anyway. He was practically carrying her by the end of their walk (although he was leaning on her quite a bit himself). He kicked the door shut behind them—there was no way he'd be able to lock it; he'd be lucky if he'd stay conscious long enough to achieve the last thing that needed taking care of—and dumped Shilo on his bed. She made a feeble protest, but her words slurred together, and her eyes were already drifting shut. Shaking his head a little, Graverobber pointed at the mattress. "I'll be back in a while, all right? Don't go doing anything stupid while I'm gone."

Shilo buried herself under his blanket (hopefully, she wouldn't wake up enough to ever notice what it looked like; that blanket was not for the faint of heart) and made a noise that might have been "okay." Graverobber shook his head and ducked out of the room again.

O-o-O-o-O

He shook her awake a while later: could have been an hour, could have been five minutes. It made no difference to Shilo's tired brain. She realized with some surprise that she was happy to see him—not because he could help her or because she would finally be able to yell at him or any such nonsense. She was just… happy, and she had to bite her bottom lip to keep from smiling. In one hand, he held a little square box that looked sort of like a cross between a magnet and a UPC reader. "Huh—?"

Graverobber handed her the… thing. When she blinked at him, he turned his back on her. "It's for your tattoo… I need my jacket back." She pressed it into his hands, clasped behind his back. "Thanks." He glanced at her over his shoulder for a moment and away, his eyes sliding along the wall. "Use it like an eraser."

Shilo watched him for a moment until she was sure he wasn't going to look, then hiked up her skirt so she could see the tattoo. Even in the dim light from the few candles he'd lit while she was asleep, it glimmered like a dark dream. She scrubbed the little box against it a few times, and it was gone, like it had never been; she had to touch her skin a few times to reassure herself that it really wasn't there anymore.  Pulling her dress back down over her knees, she put the box back in Graverobber's hands. "Thanks."

His mouth quirked to one side, he glanced at her again. "So I get yelled at when I save your life, but I do you a little favor and I actually get gratitude? You need to work on your priorities."

Shilo wrinkled her nose a little; she noticed that most of his statements had lapsed into the imperative, like he didn't want to call her nicknames but couldn't bear to call her her real name. It was irritating. "Yes, I suppose that's the way it goes," she replied in her best prim voice.

Graverobber snorted and turned around to face her, setting his hands in his pockets. He tensed a little, like he wanted to say something, but then he shook his head and shrugged off his coat. "You gonna move so I can go to sleep?"

Tilting her head back so she could look into his face, Shilo shook her head. "I'm comfortable where I am, thank you very much."

Graverobber tilted his head, but then he grinned a little and sat down on the bed beside her. "Then scoot over. You're hogging the blankets." She obliged and rolled over on her side; he leaned over and blew out the candles. After a moment, she felt his back against hers, and he pulled the blanket over both of them. She was still tired, but before she got the chance to really drift off, he spoke. "Hey, Shilo."

She tilted her head so she could see his face. "Mmm?"

Staring at the ceiling, he rested one hand on her thigh. It was pleasant, neither sexual nor platonic but a comfortable distance from both. "It's David." She blinked at him. "My name. It's David. Now you see why I let people call me Graverobber all the time—David ain't too intimidating." Shilo put her hand over his with a little sigh; she thought about speaking, but instead she pressed her face into the side of his neck. That seemed to be enough.
O-o-O-o-O

When he woke up—some fleeting, feeble part of his brain screaming that he had slept too long and that he was definitely in danger—she was sitting on the edge of his mattress, wrapped in his coat and staring off into the darkness. When he lifted his head, she looked at him, her eyes little moons circling empty space. Her mind was far away, but he knew what she was thinking about. He sat up and drew his legs against his chest, wrapping his arm around his knees. "So when are you leaving?"

His voice surprised him. He had told himself he couldn't (wouldn't) act around her anymore, couldn't be that person to her anymore, but most of him had been sure he wouldn't follow through. But there was his heart, raw, one of the only ones in this world that didn't bear a GeneCo stamp bleeding out in front of her.  He didn't want her to leave, knew she was going to. The only question was what he was going to do.

Shilo drew his coat tighter around her, but her eyes were still far away; she was listening, though only just. "What makes you think I want to leave?" she asked. Her words were empty, and they fell to the ground like dead leaves. She knew it, too; she hugged herself, suddenly, and she looked over at him with her eyes very large and very scared. But they were very here, and that was all that mattered to him.

He sat up quickly and pressed his hand against the side of her face- her skin was cool, smooth. But he would not be denied. "When?" She looked at him in the dim half-light from the shaded windows and shrugged. He put his other hand on the side of her neck, ran his fingers down from the curve of her jaw to the edge of her shoulder. There were words he wanted to say, but they bunched up, hid, avoided his gaze. None of them were good enough: none of them were true enough.

It was all he deserved, he supposed, for avoiding it this long; he ran his thumb along her cheekbone and sighed. He wanted to kiss her again, but that would only get in the way. "Whatever," he muttered. "It doesn't make a difference, I guess."

She made a soft little noise, like a cat, and touched his hand. "I don't know," she replied. "I mean, I had a plan, but— " She stopped and looked away, her face unreadable. Her fingers ran back and forth over the back of his hand, but it was an absent gesture, empty of any affection or meaning. To stop her, he flipped his hand over and grabbed hers.

As she let out a deep breath, her face turned back toward his, slowly. All of the girl had burned away in their time apart: she was a woman now, uncertain of herself, but still an adult. "I had a plan, but it doesn't really mean anything now. I realized… I can't do this myself. I thought I could just—just leave, and maybe I could get that far," her face darkened a little, "or maybe I'd just get caught again, and this time they'd find some way to make me stay. And I don't know what I'd do if I got out. I don't know if there are other cities or where to find them—I can't even find food for myself!" She broke off with a frustrated little noise, and her free hand clutched the air like it was Amber's (or maybe her father's) neck.

She sighed deeply, and he could almost see the toxins fleeing her: seventeen years of a self-fulfilling prophecy, of being told she couldn't do anything. "I can't," she whispered after a moment, and her eyes lifted and caught his, "but you can." She bit her lip, and it made her adorable and sexy at the same time.

Graverobber sat back and let out a deep breath. There was really only one answer he could give, but it was more than words: it was more of himself than he'd ever given to anybody, even if only by implication. Still, though… He leaned forward until their faces were almost touching. "I said I wouldn't leave, didn't I?"

Shilo smiled, and it was like a sunrise—a real one, like in old movies. He smiled back, and that was real too.