sorrydontsuitme

She laughs in spite of herself, eyes rolling, but her relief is on every breath out of her mouth. "You never did pay enough attention to where you were going."

Standing around half-dressed on an injured leg in her open doorway isn't her idea of a good time, and she ushers him in, closing and locking the door behind him.

(It's so good to see him.)

He can sit wherever he wants to, but she lowers herself onto the bed again, leg propped up. "I got shot," she offers, getting that out of the way since she knows he was sizing her up, and she presses her lips together in a crooked smile. "First time for everything. But I'll be fine. The hotel was attacked again, and I--"

She catches herself and teeters on the edge of trailing off, ending the thought there, or starting a completely new sentence, but then she goes on.

"--couldn't find you anywhere."

At least she's not in danger of crying again.

Even though they ain't got a single french fry or hamburger or Coca-Cola between them, he sits down on the bed near her anyhow and redirects her foot up onto his thigh. He means to take care of her and that's exactly what he's gonna do, and he promised tit-for-tat and she's told him a little so he can tell her a little, and then they can dive back in for the details, see what size fish they come up with. If it ain't big enough they'll just throw it back and try for a bigger one.

That's how it works.

"Hell, Freckles, least you got all the excitement." Real mindful of her leg, he takes care not to rest his hand on it or nothin'. Bein' shot sucks, plain and simple, and he knows that from first-hand personal experience. "Me, I was just stuck in one of the elevators."

Compared to the hotel bein' under attack and her gettin' shot, his night don't seem all that bad after all. Don't the light of day always make everything seem better?

"Now. Who the hell had the damn nerve to shoot you in the leg, Freckles? And did you get him back for it yet?" It's only 'cause he saw her eyes fill when she first opened the door that he ain't teasin' her no worse. She's good at hiding her feelings, Freckles, so for him to have caught that -- even if she didn't cry -- means her bein' glad to see him ain't no lie. It ain't no game.

(Love you too, Freckles.)

"The Dragons again? Who wrapped up your leg so nice and pretty? You got to tell me the story, woman. The things a man can miss when he's trapped goin' down to the sub-basement."

While she looks at him, there's a tiny lingering quiver in her chin that she feels and she hates, but after a moment she lets out a another laugh.

(It feels good to laugh, too. It also kind of aches, but mostly it feels good.)

He's demanding her story, but she takes a second to look at him with real (and still relieved) and undisguised amusement. "You got caught in an elevator?"

Most of the amusement leaves her eyes, though, and sympathy shines through. "Overnight?" She has no idea what time it really is; outside her window it's light but not mid-day light. "I wish I'd known."

It never even would've occurred to her that he could've been on his way down to the sub-basement. She can barely even stand to think about what it must have been like trapped in an elevator for so long.

At least it hasn't stopped him from cracking jokes.

"Guess you were safer than I thought all along. I knocked on your door" -- her first attempt of the night -- "not long after the power went out, but the Dragons broke in a few hours after."

Sounds like they got stories to tell, him and her. Digging in his pocket, he comes up with a Woolong coin and tosses it in the air, slapping his hand over it on his wrist.

"Heads or tails, Freckles?"

It ain't that he has nothing to say about her story: Freckles gettin' shot by Dragons breakin' into the hotel might be one of the few things that didn't occur to him during the however-long-it-was he spent trapped in the elevator. Hell, he thought about just about every other damn thing in the whole universe.

"We got a lot to tell, you and me. Whoever gets the call goes first."

Both stories are gonna get told. He hopes she wins the toss, 'cause at the moment it's enough of a good thing to just get to sit here and watch and listen to her, and the way she welcomed him at the door still leaves him all kinda warm and fuzzy. It ain't something he gets to feel real often and he might mock the crap out of it, but he always makes fun of the things he craves.

Simple self-preservation.

"How's that sound?"

The coin flip amuses her enough that she grins and flashes teeth for the first time in a day.

"All right." She guesses it really doesn't get much fairer than that. "Heads."

Her grin doesn't disappear as she leans forward so she can see when he uncovers his wrist.

Like it's Christmas morning and they're lookin' under the tree for the first time, he moves his hand away to see what the hell they got.

Tails.

"Son of a bitch." Ain't much venom in it, though; setting the coin aside, he cradles her leg real careful and shrugs. "Guess I'm up first. Ain't much of a story, sweetheart. I was gonna head over to the city, just for somethin' to do, and stopped in the portal room for... I don't know how come. And starin' back at me was the option to visit the sub-basement. So I said hell yes and got in the service elevator like it said and started down." That's it in a nutshell.

"Boom. Power goes out, no one in their right mind's gonna think of that elevator anyhow 'cause no one ever gets access to it. I'm down there poundin' on the door, but it ain't no use. Got to wait till the power came back on." Lookin' back on it makes it easier. "Tell you somethin' though, Freckles. Next time I take the elevator, I'm gonna bring a backpack with food and water and a flashlight with plenty of batteries and a deck of cards. Maybe even a pillow. Maybe even some company."

Least he can smile over it now, and he don't need to tell her about the visit from his daddy's ghost or thinkin' he was gonna die or wonderin' if maybe she forgot about him. The hell with that; all he needed -- all he would've needed all that long night -- was exactly what he got when she opened the door.

That hug and the smile she just gave up. He might be a complex guy, but his needs sure ain't.

She listens with a crooked smile on her face, but her eyes are unwaveringly sympathetic.

"What did you do? Sleep the whole time?"

No bed, no bathroom, no... fish biscuit-dispensing machine to keep him preoccupied. All teasing -- internal or otherwise -- aside, it must've been awful alone in the dark in a service elevator all night.

"Did you see the sub-basement?"

What'd he do? What the hell did he do? After he was done singin' Kumbaya and practicing those trust falls again?

"Oh, you know. Composed a couple symphonies, wrote the great American novel. Climbed the walls, tried to scratch my way out. Tried to count to a million but got bored around seven hundred thirty-six." His shrug's as much in his eyebrows as in his shoulders now. "Figured I was either gonna get rescued, wait it out, or die there -- the usual. Thought about you."

It's one of those things that goes without saying, but deserves to be said anyhow. "Thought about that trip we took to Mars, and the Blue Sox game, and that fool grin on your face when you hit the jackpot on that slot machine. Wished for a damn light, wished I hadn't quit the smokin' or I'd have had one. Tried to pry open the elevator door about a hundred times. Fell asleep a couple times, sang myself a few songs."

He still ain't gonna mention no ghosts. That's the kind of thing belongs back on the island, not here in some future techno-world. Don't make no damn sense.

"Tell you what, though. First thing I did once I got out of there was head to the nearest john. Never did get to the sub-basement and you can bet your ass I'll think twice about it next time it's offered." Here, now, he takes in a deep breath, lets it out real slow like he's scared it's gonna be the last one he gets for a while. "Then I grabbed a clean shirt and headed straight here. Someone's got to check in on you, Boar Expert."

Maybe he don't say it enough, but he's so damn fond of her. The thought of seein' her again kept him going, and the thought of losing her for good scared him more than anything else.

"You want to tell me about your night, Pippi?"

He says thought about you so casually, unashamed, and she manages to meet his eyes for about a full five seconds or so after it before she finally averts her eyes, lowering them momentarily.

"Guess we see what happens when you're not around to offer your southern pervert protection services."

Her laughter is understated, barely more than an exhale, but it's there and genuine, and she shakes her head a little before she looks him in the face again.

"It's a long story. I was heading downstairs to look for more people and ran into Bruce in the lobby before we heard gunshots coming from nearby. We hid behind front desk while a group of Dragons went through, and Bruce knocked out the guy who lagged behind. Another one doubled back for him, and we" -- she -- "had to take them both out. In the meantime, we hear the rest of the group run into resistance somewhere around the lounge. There was a big gunfight there. But Bruce and I had gone that little office by the shops." He'll know the one, probably; he was with her that first night. "And I heard something outside." She shrugs her shoulders slightly. "Opened the window to look out" -- thinking he could be out there needing help -- "and saw Vincent lying there with two Dragons standing guard. I climbed into a tree from the window, thinking I could get down there and help him."

She presses her lips together, then offers him another half-smile.

"This is going to sound crazy, but I promise this is how it happened."

"Sweetheart, it already sounds crazy." Ain't much for him to do but sit here and shake his head like a damn school teacher or somethin'. His tummy growls like he ain't never ate a day in his life, but he could ignore that for a little bit longer.

So her and the Batman got rid of a couple Dragons, went into the office to get a better look at what was goin' on outside, and found Red Cloak Man on the ground. It's got all the makings of a hell of a night. "Can't leave it there, Freckles."

In the story, she ain't even been shot yet.

"Go on."

"Was that your stomach?" Her half-smile widens into a real grin, almost teasing, and she gestures to the table. Her uninjured leg stretches out, and she taps his thigh with that foot. "You should order something."

He could get something for both of them. She hasn't eaten anything since before the Dragons broke in.

She goes on as requested, though; he's right that where she stopped wasn't anywhere to end a story, and she knows she wouldn't stand for it.

"I looked over again once I got in the tree, and Vincent wasn't on the ground anymore. Instead he was hovering in the air and" -- she shakes her head for a second before she goes on, not quite understanding it herself -- "he had wings and claws."

She eyes him before she continues, expecting the same disbelief she felt.

"But the two guys the Dragons had left with him started shooting, and I got hit. Fell out of the tree, hit my head."

She missed out on most of Vincent's... change. Once because she was preoccupied with climbing and then because she was unconscious. She doesn't know what to expect out of the explanation Vincent promised her, but she'll be sure to get it from him.

"Next thing I know Vincent's got me, and he looks like himself again. I think he gave me something that made me come to." She remembers that all too fleeting feeling of breezy bliss in the moment she woke up. "Then he gives me this vial of something, calls it a potion, and tells me I should drink it. I did and I'm pretty sure I'd be about five times worse off if I hadn't."

They can order somethin' in a minute. He's got different concerns now, reaches out, rests his palm on her forehead. "You sure you didn't fall out of the tree and hit your head before you saw old Vince there sportin' wings and claws?" That's sure as hell what it sounds like to him. Man's got that cloak and he does wear the armor. If Freckles here fell and got a concussion, she sure could have dreamed that right up.

Especially considering the rumors about the guy. The part that don't make no sense at all is that one minute he's lyin' on the ground and the next he's mid-air, almost like some magician or somethin'.

Yeah, he's leanin' toward the concussion theory.

"Last time I looked, that son of a bitch was so damn skinny you wouldn't think he'd have room to be hidin' no potions. You sure that's how it went?"

He doesn't disbelieve her. Just doin' a reality check. Then again, he killed a polar bear in the middle of a jungle and watched a monster made of smoke do all sorts of stuff. He can't say he ain't seen his share of weird.

Her mouth twists wryly. She told him it would sound crazy.

"I'm sure." He may not believe her, but at least he's not giving her much attitude about it; his tone of voice is kind of mild. "I didn't fall until after I got shot, and the Dragons didn't start shooting in my general direction until after he changed."

She isn't sure what else to call it.

"I wasn't even the only one who saw it."

Not that she's talked with Bruce about it since then, but he probably saw as much as she did.

"Well, you ain't got a fever." His hand doesn't want to fall back to his side, so he doesn't make it do anything it don't want; it slides to the side of her face and settles in there for the duration. "If I hadn't seen some of the stuff I've seen on that island, Freckles, I'd be a hell of a lot more skeptical. From crazy French chicks settin' booby traps in the jungle to whispers in the dark to boars with a grudge to smoke monsters, makes what you saw sound almost mild."

After all that, he ain't gonna put nothin' past no one. But he sure would like to be a fly on the wall listenin' to Superman explain that some day, if he ever does. Guy's kinda quiet, like Jin before he learned a lick of English, quiet that way.

And no, after careful consideration, his hand ain't goin' nowhere. For hours and hours and hours last night all he wanted was to get a chance to touch Freckles one more time, one last time. Now he's got it, he ain't gonna let it go so fast. "So a man who just had wings and claws but don't no longer gives you somethin' to wake you up, then hands you what, a little bottle and says drink this and you do, just like Alice gone down that rabbit hole? And then what happens?"

There's got to be more. Her story's already winnin' the who-had-it-stranger contest.

She definitely doesn't have a fever, but it's kind of sweet that his hand only moves to her forehead to the side of her face. It makes her tempted to tell him that if she didn't know any better she'd think he was genuinely happy that she's doing all right.

(She knows he is.)

His hand stays there, and she doesn't say a thing about it. But she does laugh at his summary of events.

"Well, you tell me. I look pretty good for someone who got kicked in the stomach, got shot in the leg, and fell out of a tree." She looked herself over; there are no scrapes or scratches left on her arms and hands. She couldn't even find anything wrong with her head, and even though her hair could be hiding something her head isn't tender anywhere. Her middle aches when she turns or stretches in certain ways -- she was kicked hard -- but it's really only her leg that's a problem. "I started feeling a little better. Vincent knew where a first aid kit was, so he took me there and bandaged me up. Promised to tell me all about what I'd seen sometime after the power returned."

She gives Sawyer an easy shrug.

"Looked around for you after that," she admits, her smile just a flicker. "Went back and got my bag full of flashlights and candles, saw the carnage in the lounge, found the door where Dragons broke in and set up camp there because it didn't seem like anybody else had discovered it yet. I dozed off after a while, so it's a good thing no more Dragons came."

And she still doesn't feel like she'd been sleeping long when his knock woke her up, but she's so glad to see him she could never complain.

Only one thing he could really say to that.

"Damn, baby." It's soft, just a little utterance beneath his breath, and because he can he leans forward and kisses her. Real soft, right on the lips. "All last night that's all I wanted. If I could have, Sassafras, I would have looked for you long and hard and all over the damn place. Didn't much care for bein' trapped in there all those hours without my consent."

Consent. Like he would have said okay, power, you can go out now, I'm ready? He doesn't think so. Not unless it was the two of 'em together with a couple pillows and one of those air mattresses and a few blankets. Candles for mood.

Maybe that mix tape he still has to find for her.

"So. Your leg okay, or do I need to get you to the hospital?" Hell, she's done it for him. He's got no reason to be sure Vince knows the first thing about First Aid, so it might be time for a little quid pro quo.

When he leans in to kiss her, her hand cups around his.

Something in her chest aches at the tenderness of it, and she doesn't know when he became sweet to her or when he started caring so much or when he started admitting to it... but she's conscious of it right now even if he's not.

Her hand falls back down to her lap. She swallows self-consciously, as though they haven't slept together right in this bed before. More than once.

"Think I'll be okay. Vincent did a pretty good job." She almost smiles again. "But you could order us some breakfast."

"That," he says with a grin so sly it threatens to slide right off his damn face, "I can do."

It was gettin' a little close in here. For a minute there he almost thought he was running a long con without the con part. Somethin' about facing down all that stuff in a dark and enclosed space makes a man think about what's important and what ain't. And yeah, he's been in the stir, been in lockup, and he knows that's what solitary's all about: makin' a man face what really matters. He never had to do that in prison, and he's glad.

And now that they're gonna get breakfast he realizes exactly how starvin' he is, so he orders up a damn storm. All the stuff they couldn't get on the island: pancakes with syrup. Bacon. Eggs. Bowls of Martian fruits; coffee with cream. Fresh-squeezed orange juice. Cheesecake. Toast.

Hopefully the power reset don't mean whatever it is ain't been chargin' none of 'em to live here all this time is suddenly gonna call in the debts. Course, the flip side of that is maybe the slate's been wiped clean. Fresh start.

(Love you too, Freckles.)

"So. Vincent. He's gonna have a nice little sit-down sometime and explain it all, he said?" If what Nurse Nancy here says is true, then he owes the guy for takin' good care of his girl. But he'd sure as hell like to hear the explanation first-hand.

She breathes a little easier with him up and smiling like that, like everything's back to normal. And with food on the way up.

"Well, Vincent's going to have a nice little sit-down with me. I don't know how much he's going to tell other people."

She'll share with Sawyer, at least to a certain extent, but after seeing how Vincent reacted she feels for the guy. She'll keep quiet about anything he'd like her to keep quiet about.

He may not seem to remember anything that happened when he wasn't the Vincent she's always known, but even then he still played the part of hotel defender.

From what she could tell.

Funny how information is currency in places where money don't exist or don't matter. He doesn't have to tell Freckles he's curious as hell about what the answers are, but then again he ain't the one who was out there and saw it, so he has no business makin' demands on the guy to know what the hell's going on.

Waiting on permission ain't his style, though, and he'll find out what he wants to know one way or another, and won't no one else know it either. Only him, and that's the way it's always been and it's the way he likes it. For Freckles, he shrugs and gives a little nod.

"He tells the rest of us anything, I'll give you the heads-up on it. Don't expect him to make no big public announcements, though." They ain't even talked, to his recollection. Just nodded in passing a couple times, like they know each other and that's enough. Until now, even with the rumors and all, that's been enough. He can wait, but he ain't patient.

Last night in the elevator proved that.

Want to hear somethin' happened in that elevator last night, Freckles? He toys with the idea of sayin' it aloud but can't quite let the words out, like they're stuck so deep inside after a lifetime hidin' what he saw in the dark under that bed that if he lets 'em out now, a flood's gonna follow. Sure, she knows the bare bones of it -- she read that letter he's still got tucked away in his back pocket -- but she don't know the whole story and now ain't the time for confession.

"Sure hope you're hungry. Got you a Coca-Cola and some fries." See what she makes of that.

"Yeah, I don't expect him to."

Somehow she can't imagine Vincent making a big public announcement about it, either. Quietly fielding questions like it's a press conference.

The idea kind of makes her heart ache. He'd seemed so uncertain. He seemed like he wasn't sure that he could trust himself.

Vincent's always struck her as reserved -- even just plain shy -- but uncertain? Never. It's always seemed to her that he knows his abilities well, and she's never seen him act in a way she's considered afraid before.

Looking over at Sawyer, she grins. "You ordered us Coke and french fries for breakfast?"

She'll take it -- she's hungry -- but it does make her laugh.

"Nah." Now he grins again, fit to beat the damn band. "Just pullin' your leg, Freckles. Ordered you the southern pervert special: grits, ham with red-eye gravy, biscuits." Shaking his head, he laughs again. "Nah, don't worry. I'm takin' good care of both our breakfast needs. Think you'll like it."

And in the meantime, till it gets here -- and who knows if it'll take extra long or if the robots are playin' catch-up 'cause of the blackout or whatever, although everything else seems like it's a go -- he'll take care of that shot-up leg of hers, and rub her back or neck if she wants, and let her tell him heroic tales about what all else happened or get mad at him for not ordering up Coke and fries, or... hell, just about anything. He ain't the type of man to go around missin' no one, but he didn't like that elevator business at all, not one little bit and he's glad as hell not to be alone no more.

Maybe sometime he'll even tell her about seein' Daddy.

Maybe.

5/26/74

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