Disclaimer: I do not own this series. Why would I want to? Since I don't, I get to enjoy the suspense of not knowing what happens next until it happens.
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"Richard."
"I'm here."
"I know."
Of course he knew, Richard reflected. He seemed to know everything.
He hadn't always. Not before, not when Richard had first hauled the bedraggled teenager out of a bog near Lesser Malling. Then, he had seemed just about as lost, as far in over his head as Richard was.
But over time, the boy had changed. He wasn't a fifteen-year-old boy anymore. His body was, but it held a different mind, a mind like a sponge, soaking everything in, retaining it, filing it away for later, never, ever forgetting.
And that was why he was the leader of the Five, the unofficial head of the Gatekeepers. Because he knew.
"Are you feeling all right?"
"Yeah."
His breathing was rough, raspy, uneven, but there was no pain in his face. They had given him no sedative, no painkiller; but Richard had seen his friend clamber barehanded and barefooted up a ladder made of swords, neither cutting himself nor showing any sign of distress. He wasn't surprised that he couldn't see any hint in Matt's face of what was really going on within him.
He hadn't been able to for a long time.
"They're celebrating."
"I can hear." Matt had picked up some of Richard's own rye sarcasm; but though it showed through in his voice, his features remained impassive. No crinkling of the eyes, no twitch of the lips, just a blank, thin face, pale against Richard's dirty, rolled-up jacket which he used as a pillow and which was all the journalist could give him.
"Do you want me to bring you something?"
"No ... I'm not hungry."
"You should drink something."
Matt looked at Richard for a moment, and his eyes were the only things that showed anything--a slight glazed look, but it was just enough to give him away.
And Richard could see that Matt knew that, too.
The boy scrutinized his friend for a moment, then said quietly, "Sure."
Somehow, Richard knew he was being humored, put to work so he would feel useful, but he didn't care. He reached for the water bottle, supporting Matt's head with his free hand, tilting the boy up so he could drink. Matt took a few sips, then closed his mouth, and Richard gently laid him back down.
It was hard to pull away. But Richard furiously schooled his own features into impassiveness and extricated his arm from beneath Matt's head, determined to play Matt's own game the way the raven-haired teen was playing it.
"Richard."
It wasn't an inquiry, but a soft statement, and Richard looked back at his friend. Matt's eyes were half-lidded, as if the boy were just too exhausted to hold them fully open. A slight sheen of sweat had appeared on his forehead.
"Yeah?"
"Are you going back to the celebration?"
The words were almost a whisper, but Richard could easily see their underlying meaning. Or meanings--for there were many there. There was the surface question. There was a statement of fact, a knowledge, just one of many things Matt knew--one of the last things he would know. And another, deeper question, perhaps a subconscious one, spoken through the contact of eyes, one pair alert, the other rapidly dulling. It was a question Matt himself would probably never have asked aloud even if he had been in the best of health. Richard answered it the only way he could.
"Are you kidding? I've already got enough of a headache."
Matt smiled, thanking him in silence for seeing and ceding to the tacit request. Richard smiled back, and wondered how he could have refused.
Matt fell asleep ten minutes later, one hand open, palm up, on the ground next to his blankets, nearly touching Richard's knee. The fair-haired journalist sat in stolid silence; but when he was sure it was safe, when there had been no sound within the lean-to for a good ten minutes, when he was sure knowledge of this moment would forever lie only with him, he allowed himself to take the open hand.
He didn't return to the festivities, though they raged all night long and well into the morning. And when he did come out to refill his water bottle, well after the party had ended, he was wearing his jacket again.