DANCING
"Do you think they are looking for us?"
It is, as closely as Gunther can tell – which really isn't very closely at all – mid-morning. His window has been shedding faint light on him for at least – he thinks – two to three hours now, and some time ago their doors had banged open again, allowing for small bowls of thin, watery gruel to be shoved inside their respective cells.
It had been all he could do to choke it down, even as hungry as he was. Jane had offered no commentary on the quality of this meal, nor had she responded when he'd asked her if she'd eaten it.
Which had worried him deeply.
He is still worried deeply.
"Yes, Jane. Yes, they are looking for us," he says now, with all the surety he can muster.
She sinks back into silence for a long time. Then – "do you think they will find us?"
"Yes," he says again… but not quickly enough. There's a trace of hesitation there because hell, he wants to believe they'll be rescued somehow – of course he does –
But wanting to believe it and actually believing it, in his heart of hearts, are not the same thing.
So he takes just a second too long to answer, and he knows – he KNOWS – that Jane wasn't listening for what he said, she was listening for how he said it.
And he's failed her.
God DAMN it.
He tips his head back against the stone wall, sick with himself. "Jane –"
"It is all right," she says quietly. Her voice is like lead.
"We will get out," he says desperately, groping for her hand and wrapping it in his own. Empty words, but God, he has to say something. She doesn't pull away from him, but she doesn't return his squeeze either. "Jane? We will."
"...I know," she replies. But this time the hesitancy is hers.
"Jane? Jane, get up. You need to walk."
Gunther has been pacing the perimeter of his cell like a caged animal; an endless circuit, around and around, for what he thinks must be a couple of hours at least. It is – he reckons – the afternoon of their third day of captivity. Or maybe their fourth.
God, but it's getting hard to keep track.
"Jane." He goes and hunkers down in what he's mentally come to term their corner.
"Jane."
He's hardly been able to coax a word out of her all day. She's right there – only a wall away from him – but he feels like he's losing her somehow, his worry ratcheting up and up as the hours pass. He can't lose her.
He can't.
Hands dangling between his knees, he lets his forehead fall against the cool, rough stone. Takes a shaky breath, tries to get a handle on his anxiety, his fear.
"Jane, say something." His voice cracks slightly as he adds, "please."
"Gunther… all right. If you insist. I am up." She sounds like she's been sleeping again, her voice foggy. He hears her mumble something under her breath, and while the words are unclear, the tone is not. He'd bet the next day's gruel that it's something along the lines of "always the bully."
"Did you hear me before? We have to move."
"Move…?" She sounds frankly incredulous, and still slightly disoriented. "Where, Gunther?"
He grits his teeth, frustration surging through him – is she being deliberately obtuse?! But he wills himself calm before he can say something he'll regret. It's not Jane he wants to rage against, it's the situation they're in, this whole sarding, goddamned, bollixed-to-hell situation.
He presses his eyes closed, struggling for composure.
"We have to move our bodies, Jane. We cannot just lie down and… give up."
He waits for a response; for something, anything. Nothing is forthcoming.
"Jane," he tries again, in mounting desperation, "stand up. Walk with me. Just for a little while, all right?"
"Gunther –" she seems to be groping for words. "I cannot see anything. Nothing, and…" she trails off for a moment as he mentally kicks himself. Damn it, how could he have forgotten? She has no window – he hasn't been getting much light, but she gets none.
None.
"It is... just so dark," she says then, quietly, almost tonelessly.
Defeatedly.
He wants to cry.
Instead, he keeps pushing her. He has to. He has to.
"Is there anything in there you could trip over? Any furnishings, any debris?"
"...No."
"Then you can walk in the dark. Come on, Jane."
The next time she speaks, her voice comes from standing height. "So what now?"
Sudden inspiration strikes him. He smacks the wall between them. "There. Put your hand there. Against mine."
A pause. Then, "all right."
"Hit the wall, so I know we are –" his voice cracks slightly – "touching."
Another pause, then he hears the smack of her palm against the stone. It does sound as if their hands and pretty well aligned.
"Dance with me," he says.
He thinks he hears her breath catch… but it's impossible, really, to tell.
There is yet another pause, the longest so far. Then, "Gunther," she says, "how kind of you to ask."
And they dance. Slowly, carefully at first, but with increasing confidence as the minutes pass, they dance in the dark.
It is sometime late the next day that things take a drastic turn for the worse.
Gunther's not naive. He'd known, deep down, known from the beginning that the odds their captors would simply leave them alone were small. He'd known it, but it had been too ghastly a truth to examine closely; when his thoughts had started to bend in that direction, he had shut them down.
That way panic lay, and he'd been determined not to give in to panic if he could possibly prevent it. Panic is counterproductive; it can only make things worse. It won't help the situation; it won't help Jane.
So after that first awful burst of it when they'd been taken, he'd fought valiantly against the future waves that had tried to swamp him. He'd suppressed all notions of what else could be in store for them; clamping down on them, refusing to even look at them head-on.
But still, he'd known.
He'd known all along, his dread sitting cold and heavy in his gut.
The fact that it comes as no surprise, however, doesn't make it any less horrific when it happens… especially because it's not him that their captors are particularly interested in.
It's Jane. Of course it's Jane.
