A/N: For the sake of English practice... my take on the events after "97 Seconds". Didn't watch it, so if you stumble upon mistakes, they're all yours. It contains... not a single line of dialog. I'm proud! You should be, too. And before I forget: It's... a bit of Huddy.
His words lacked the usual intent of inflicting hurt. They were cold, steeled, but at the same time filled with an unspoken sorrow that made her wrap her arms tighter around herself without thinking. She wanted nothing more than to reach out, to tell him it would all be fine one day, to take the pain she knew was there away. But she couldn't. Her touch would send him running, her words would fall on deaf ears.
And she'd have to give up her secret.
Nobody but herself knew all his favored places, the same places he would play his own twisted version of hide and seek at.
Nobody knew everything about his childhood, about his father. About Stacy.
Nobody else knew how much it hurt to love him when he couldn't even like himself.
And she couldn't give up her secret today because that would mean letting him know that she knew all those things about him that nobody should have known about.
So when he found the girl he'd dubbed 13 on a whim, she silently stayed behind the door.
Literally.
He wouldn't let her be there for him, but she would follow him. Wherever he went. Into the dark.