10 – 4

Adelaide, vastly improved from a night in a safe bed or the bath that followed it, has a smile and touch for her daughter and husband both. Her hand slides up and around Milo's neck and jaw, passing through the hair at his nape. There's love, there. Love, and a promise: I'm not all better, it seems to say, but I will be. For Lavinia, and the press of her palm to the girl's temple and the kiss she puts in a crown of wet, dark hair, it is the same. She straightens carefully, the remnants of pain visible in the tightness around her eyes. When she lays them on the stovetop, simmering still with pots and pans of piled food, they brighten in clear and familiar interest.

Like daughter, like mother.

She doesn't look at me. Makes a point not to, I should think. Passes me by without a glance on her way. The cut of her disregard is keen, more so than I expected, but still less than I have earned. She fills her plate, choosing a good amount of everything available, and balances a filled and steaming mug on its edge as she comes back to sit across from her daughter. “Couldn't wait another minute, hm?” she teases, and Lavinia groans.

“You were taking too long,” comes the answer, along with a seemingly careless shrug. “I told Dad – I thought I was gonna starve.” Adelaide's mouth curves as she spreads butter across a piece of thick bread.

“Well,” she says drily, “we can't have that.” For the last two days she'd been in too much pain to keep down anything she ate, much less have any appetite for it. To watch her eating now is of great relief to her family, as well as the one who saved her life. Clarke's reddened eyes all but shine with it, from where she stands in the opened doorway. She tries not to look at me, but can't seem to stop herself from glancing.

I dare not hope that Milo was right, that she wants this to be fixed just as much as I want to fix it. Yet he might be, and I have to say something, if only because there are five of us, and only four places to sit. What, though? What do I say? I search for the right words, try to conjure them as if I were myself a magi, and fail. I stand up in a rush, my chair scraping across the wooden floor. “Here,” I say, rough and hurried, “I'm done, and...” I trail off. And what? “I'm done.” I finish.

Then I leave. Brush past her and flee down the hall to the bathroom. Shut myself in and latch the door. I knock my head back against it, finding a sick pleasure in the dull thud and the short bloom of pain that results. “Coward,” I name myself.

Another thud. It rouses the sorely abused muscles in my shoulder and neck. The pain they cause rolls up into the base of my skull and pulses in time with my heart. It's a punishment I've earned well.

One more. Just one, to ensure I learn my lesson. I close my eyes and grit my teeth. Breathe in deep and hold it.

Thud.

Rattle the latch, the door, and my own foolish head. Yellow-green stars burst into life and fade into the dark. It all hurts, now. Every last dormant, scabbed over cut and tender, fading bruise, just like I deserve. I breathe out. Cradle my injured arm to my chest, and open my eyes.

A pool of water dominates the room, filling a quarter of it with ease. Steam curls from its placid surface, sulphur's acrid stink faint in the air. I pace over to it, stone tiles cool beneath my feet. The rough-round walls of the spring have been chipped and carved into neat, square lines. A series of small steps hewn in lead down to the smoothed over bottom, where a quartet of stones await to be sat on. I look around for soap and rag, and find both. Check the door before undressing, make sure it's still latched.

The heat stings my cuts and annoys my bruises. I sink in up to my chin, perched atop a stone I'm meant to sit on. As the moments drag out and steam curls into the air, every stiff, sore, and wrenched muscle I possess begins to relax and calm. The relief is heavenly. I tilt back into it, hair a dirty halo around my head, and begin to float. Water rushes to fill my ears with silence.

For a while, this is all there is.

For a while, nothing hurts, and I have nothing to make right.

For a while.

When it comes to an end, it does with a knock at the door. A knock and a voice, pushing through the silence of water.

“Zira?” Clarke calls, “Can we talk?”

- - -

After letting her in, I retreated to the darkest and furthest corner of the pool, curling around my legs in an alcove hidden there. Clarke sits cross-corner to me with her feet curled beneath her. She studies her hands and chances little looks at me and neither of us say a word.

Tension curls among the steam rising from the pool. It twists between us, tighter and tighter, until it snaps when Clarke says, “I wonder if Morrow knows how lucky he is.” What? A tiny smile in the corners of her mouth, “Hot springs like this, they don't just, well, – spring – out of the ground, you know?” What? “It's odd, because I...um...because I actually came to –”

I interrupt her, giving voice to my puzzlement. “Why are you here?” Why didn't you stay away, force me to seek you out?

From beneath her brow, surprise flashes in her blue eyes. So does hurt. Again, because of me. “Should I not – do you want me to go?” Say she's had enough, Milo's voice in my mind, say she wants to go home. What would you do?

Beg her not to. “No!” I leave my hidden corner, pushing through parting waters so she can see I mean it when I say, “Please don't. Please. Please, I just – I don't understand why you're here.”

Closer now, I can see her struggle not to look at me. “W – well, I –” she breathes in deep. “I want to apologize. I...what I said was hurtful, and –”

She wants to what? Again, I interrupt, “Wait. Wait, you want to – ?”

“Yes.”

“To me.”

Her brow furrows, just a little. “Yes?” I say nothing, because there is nothing in my mind nor on my tongue to say. She takes my speechless, stunned silence for something else, and an explanation trips from her, “Adelaide thinks that – you're – the one who should...you know, but – she wasn't there, and I don't think I explained it very well, and she was horrid to you earlier and all I wanted was advice...” Near tears, she laments, “I don't know what I did wrong.”

How? How can she have been part of what happened between us and think it anyone's fault but mine?! “Clarke, you...you did – nothing – wrong. Nothing. It was – it was me. It was all me. If I could take it all back, I would. Will you look at me, Clarke? Please?” When she does, the sight of those blue, blue eyes spilling tears strikes like the claw of a bramble-beast. “I'm sorry,” I rasp, “I am so, so sorry.”

She takes a shaking breath before saying, “I thought you were...I don't know...I thought maybe you were punishing me, for – for something, and...”

Oh, Goddess and Lost, help me. Help me. I sniff and swallow the knot of acid barbs in my throat. “No. No, no, listen: you were right. When you said you've done nothing but save me, since the moment we met? You were right.”

“So...” soft confusion in her voice, the pinch of her brow. “Why, then?”

Shame lashes me again. Less than I deserve. “You won't like the answer,” I warn.

She snorts, “There's nothing I like about this. Tell me.”

“Everything hurt,” I say, “and Adelaide looked like she was dying, and it's my fault. I was so tired of being miserable and scared that I thought – I thought being angry was better. So, I picked a fight.”

More confusion on her face. Bewilderment, even. “But...that's – ”

“Stupid?” I finish for her, “Childish? Cruel?”

“No,” She shakes her head, “Well, yes, but...” A surprised laugh escapes her. “I had this all wrong, didn't I?” She gives a heavy sigh, and I wait in the still, quiet waters. “I forgive you,” she says.

“You do?” I ask softly.

She nods. “I do.”

I could let it end here. I could. It wouldn't be right. So, “But I hurt you.”

“You did,” she agrees, “but you regret it, and I don't want to lose you, so...” she shrugs. “I forgive you.”

Relief drops my damp brow to her leg. After a moment, I feel her hands in my hair.

For a while, this is all there is, and it's beautiful.