This has taken me like a billion hours of editing to finish - I have tried to keep it as in character as possible! Enjoy reading.
(I hope you like it as well, Freda)
The question slipped out before he had a chance to realize that he didn't want to hear the answer. Larten traced the scar on her palm, and couldn't help but notice the others, one above and one below. It had taken longer than he expected to identify which one was theirs – he'd had to press their palms together, forehead creased, trying to call back the memory of how their hands had joined before he was confident that he had found it. He couldn't remember whether he'd taken notice of the others years ago.
"Who else?" he asked, in a rush, regretting it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Her eyes had been drifting closed, with his body pressed into her back and hands and legs tangled. It was late – the sun had likely risen – and they had managed, for once, to squeeze in a few hours of peace while Darren was resting. They had made love on the coffin lid and there were a couple of uncomfortable splinters in his back that until now he'd been too pleasantly exhausted to take notice of, but that he suddenly realized he would need to hide from his assistant come sunset. It would have been perfect to fall asleep entangled, catch a few hours before the Mountain was humming with activity again at sundown, but Arra was a light sleeper and his whisper had been more than enough to rouse her.
"What?" she asked groggily, twisting so that her face was turned towards him.
Larten shook his head, not wanting this anymore, hoping that she truly hadn't heard. He shifted his hand out of hers and down, along her ribcage and waist, a poor effort to create a diversion. Her light eyes quirked up towards her outstretched left hand and then back to his darker ones in an instant.
"What?" she asked again softly, while he continued to curse himself for ruining their one perfect moment. Quickly, he shook his head, hoping that it was too dark in here for her to notice his blush. She shifted up onto her forearms, all trace of that comfortable laziness knocked out of her by his error. She stared down at him, questioning, and he tried his best not to cringe under her gaze. There was no hope of getting out of this one. He sighed, and nodded towards her hand.
"Can you remember which is which?" he asked. He couldn't place the feeling – it wasn't that he felt slighted by the idea that she'd dared to see anyone else in his absence. He knew that their time had ended, and he knew that afterwards he'd disappeared and agreed to no further claim to her – she wasn't at fault for moving on. But still, there was a tugging, uncomfortable feeling in his stomach, no matter how he tried to rationalize it away.
She laughed, very quietly, but not because she was amused. It sounded instead like she thought the question ridiculous.
"Of course," she admonished, gently, gentler than the tone she used for anyone else. She shifted again, turning onto her front and laying out her hand for him to examine more openly if he wished. "You don't forget how you got one scar, even if there's another next to it. They look different. Besides, they're in order."
He brushed a tentative finger along the middle one, and she nodded. The tugging feeling worsened in response. Hearing her confirm that there had been a third after him made him distinctly uncomfortable.
"You know this one," she reminded, using the index finger of her other hand to shift his finger onto the line above. It was neat, and old, long faded into white.
"Darwin, or something," he grumbled, and then looked back at her in shock at his own behaviour, as though she was somehow pulling his strings without him realizing it. He hadn't intended to sound so petulant.
Arra raised an eyebrow. "Darvin," she corrected, thankfully looking vaguely amused. "Careful not to speak ill of the dead."
He could feel himself blushing furiously this time, and now he was certain that she could see it. She adjusted his finger so that it was over the third line. It was long healed, too, but his imagination insisted that it was clearly newer than the flat white line above it, their line.
"Never mind," he snapped, jerking his hand away. He turned over, onto his back, trying hard not to look as angry as he felt. Stop it, he thought, disgusted with himself, what are you doing?
He had expected to feel her draw away and leave, but she followed him, and when he looked up at her again she had the same familiar look of amusement in her eyes.
"Sorry," he grunted, after awkwardly clearing his throat a couple of times.
She shrugged one shoulder. The glint of mischief in her eyes bothered him almost as much as the presence of the third scar – why did she think this was funny? In the back of his mind somewhere he registered that perhaps the tugging feeling had a name, but he winced at the thought of the word jealous. He hadn't expected it to bother him, but then again he hadn't expected to be bothered one way or another about her, either.
"I have changed my mind," he interrupted, as she drew breath to speak. "It is none of my business."
Her lips twitched at the corners. "No," she agreed. "It isn't. But, since you asked –"
"No!" he hissed, before he had a moment to consider stopping himself. The amusement flared in her bright eyes, much more than before, and she seemingly couldn't help but succumb to a smile. After that, he closed his eyes, as though the conversation was so boring that he wanted to fall asleep rather than engage in it any longer. "I misspoke. I do not want to know."
There was a brief silence after that. His cheeks were still hot, and he willed himself to stop blushing, and willed her a thousand times more to stop smiling as if his discomfort amused her.
"Alright," she said, lightly, apparently having accepted his change of heart. "It isn't a secret. I'll tell you if you change your mind."
She lazily stretched one leg out over the edge, and arched her back with a yawn, before shifting back into her original position. As soon as her head was turned away from him, his eyes snapped wide open.
He fought a tough internal war with himself for the next several minutes in the dark, eventually deciding to stop being ridiculous and do his best to fall asleep. He fitted in behind her the same way as before, sighing into her hair, one hand curled over her hip. In the moment before he closed his eyes, her left hand flexed in front of him, and he couldn't stand it any longer.
"Fine," he growled, as though she'd pushed the answer onto him. Arra groaned, as though she had been falling asleep, and turned over again to meet his eyes. This time, he raised himself up and stared down at her. "Fine. Tell me, then."
She still had the nerve to look amused, but schooled her mouth back into a line at the sight of the anger in his eyes. She drew breath, looking as though she was considering the best way to break it to him, and he raised a hand before she had a chance to speak.
"I do not want to know if it is a friend of mine," he blurted, unsure of what exactly he classified as a friend or exactly why that was supposed to make any difference. He could just imagine her saying Vancha, or Gavner, or something, with that look in her eyes, and even the thought made his skin crawl.
She started to open her mouth again, and he gave her a stern look that stopped her.
"Also," he interrupted, ignoring it when her lips split into a smile despite herself. "I would rather not know if it was someone we spent any time with on our tour together."
Arra nodded, trying to look serious and failing miserably.
"I also would rather not know if it is someone very successful," he added, shyly, and she chuckled before she could stop herself.
"Stop laughing at me!" he demanded, trying to sound authoritative. His blush was deepening, he could feel it, but he convinced himself that this was nothing to be ashamed of.
"Are there any circumstances in which I am supposed to tell you?" she asked, teasingly, once her laughter was under control. She was still smiling infuriatingly, like this was the most amusing moment of her entire life. "What am I supposed to say if it falls into one of those categories?"
The tugging feeling worsened tenfold, so much that he clenched his fist. It felt like he wanted to wreck something.
"Fine," he growled again, resisting the urge to tell her to wipe that smirk off her face or else. "Just tell me. I do not care who it was."
Arra took a moment to study him, and he stared back at her crossly, this time without a hint of embarrassment – far from being none of his business, he now felt like this was entirely his business, like it was his right to know if he wished.
Just as her lips parted, he interjected;
"Unless it was Mika. Do not tell me if it was Mika."
She laughed again, maddeningly.
"And what am I supposed to say if it is?"
Before he could take a moment to think about an appropriate way to react, his temper had already taken hold. It felt like his blood had turned entirely to ice.
"What?" he roared, without a thought for the vampires in the adjacent cells, springing back as though she'd slapped him. The amusement was suddenly gone from her eyes, as though she had not been expecting this, and she climbed forwards to intercept him when he raced for his shirt, muttering heated death threats. He brushed her hands away, not wanting to touch her, but she grasped his wrists insistently.
"It wasn't Mika," she said, having the grace to look a little ashamed. "I was only playing."
Larten shook her off anyway, but let out a long breath he hadn't known he was holding.
"That was a nasty trick," he accused, hurt. She said nothing for a long moment, giving him a few seconds to remember their conversation. He supposed, in hindsight, that he'd tricked himself without her help.
"Who, then?" he asked, when he'd cooled off sufficiently. He sank back next to her, still on the edge of another fit of temper if she revealed something he didn't want to hear. In the moments of silence, he wondered whether even a name he didn't recognize would be too difficult to accept.
She lay out her hand again over his thigh so that he could see it properly. The third scar looked deeper, longer than the others, as though it had been done thoughtlessly or in a rush. She hovered a finger over it, and leaned forwards to catch his eye.
"This one is because I grasped my dagger by the blade instead of the hilt," she admitted, and this time it was her turn to blush. It took him a moment to realize that she wasn't playing with him again.
"Honestly?" he asked, feeling the tugging unpleasant sensation subside, his muscles relaxing.
Arra rolled her eyes, and shot him a stern look. There was never any need to ask if she was being truthful – for as long as he'd known her, she had never lied.
"You might have said that at the beginning," he said, confused.
"You made an assumption," she sniffed unapologetically. "It isn't my fault that you made a foolish one."
They sat together in silence for a while after that, Larten surprised at the intensity of his own reaction. Had he really, only a moment ago, been roaring at her, been murmuring threats of violence, been furious at the thought of her with another man?
He turned to look at her, eventually, and she smiled back.
"It wasn't a foolish assumption," he defended gently, reassured that she did not look angry. He drew an arm around her, pulling her in tight against him, and she pressed a kiss against the side of his neck that made him shiver.
"It was," she disagreed, in a whisper against his ear. She pulled back, ever so slightly, just enough to meet his eyes. There was a delicate blush on her cheeks, a type he had never associated with her before, a type that made him want to kiss her. She swallowed, and it took him a moment to understand that she, of all people, was embarrassed. "There never was anyone else – at least, not really, not the same way. You must know that."
He imagined that he had seen most sides to her by now, but this was the first time he could remember, the first time ever, that he'd been able to see vulnerability. He supposed he did know that, deep down – he supposed he had known from the look in her eyes the first time he'd seen her, sat a couple of rows away in the Hall when he'd arrived with Darren. He had spotted her instantly, even though she looked different – as though a few decades had changed her more than they should have – but in many ways she looked the same as she had when she'd all but threatened him in that hotel in Germany. He had been oddly panicked by the thought that she might come over and speak to him, in front of Darren, but she did no such thing. Arra had raised her hand in a little wave, and he had nodded politely back without drawing his assistant's attention. He had pretended not to see the soft look in her eyes, the clench of her jaw. It had been simpler not to see it.
"I know it isn't the same, for you," she continued, eyes stubbornly fixed on his, as though she thought it would be a sign of weakness to look away. "I know it's second best, but –"
"It is not," he said, automatically, and she smiled softly at his weak defence.
"But it doesn't matter," she assured him, even though there was a sadness in her eyes. "I don't mind."
He took a second to consider his response, eyes downcast. He understood her meaning, of course – he had made no secret of the fact that she was his second choice, his only remaining option, all those years ago. Perhaps he had made it plainer than necessary. He only realized now that it had been weeks since he'd thought of Alicia – longer than ever, so long that it surprised him. The question wasn't whether Arra was still a second choice, because the first choice no longer existed.
But, for a moment, he wondered. If he had the chance to reverse it all, to be back in 1906 now, to discard this to have her back, would he?
"It is not," he said, shocked by his own revelation. He looked up, catching her gaze again, wanting to make sure she knew. His voice came stronger this time, more certain. "It is not."
She struggled to formulate a response – her lips parted and then closed again dumbly, not having expected a denial once he'd had a chance to think about it – and he laughed, dizzy with love, and leaned across to kiss her, head swimming.
She broke his embrace, eyes turbulent.
"Don't say that," she warned. There was a kind of desperation in her eyes, half desperate for reassurance and half desperate for him to take it back, desperate not to fall again. "I didn't ask you to say that. I will not be angry if you say you didn't mean it."
He laughed, like that was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard, and her eyes flashed. "I will be happy if you take it back," she insisted, begging to be cut loose.
"But it is the truth," he whispered sincerely. He grasped her hand and laid it out with his over the top, finding the angle at which the scars were aligned. Her breath caught, even though she tried hard to look unaffected.
"I love you," he promised, faithfully, and shifted closer again, pressing a kiss into her jaw.
"Good," she shot back, trying hard to emulate nonchalance, but her voice cracked and betrayed her. He pulled her in close and this time she happily permitted him to kiss her, moaning gladly into his mouth when he encouraged her to lie back, fingers dancing along her thigh. His head was still swimming, blinded by his realization, and he grinned against her neck, a kind of true smile that had been hard to come by over the last few years. He whispered it again, against her collarbone, and finally allowed the feeling to overtake him, after so many years of holding it back.