320 days.
He was fascinated with her. She was an enigma he couldn't figure out; possibly she hadn't even realized her true value yet. She was forever mysterious, not confiding in him nor anyone.
One day, he asked her why she enjoyed being so mysterious instead of opening up to anyone.
"Mal, people are like books," she'd answered thoughtfully. "You need to read them to understand them, and even when you do, there are still questions that keep you up at night. Maybe I'm just the boring history textbook you haven't completely finished reading yet because it's an activity you aren't looking forward to doing."
"I'd like to understand you better," he told her.
She smirked and looked up at him, "Then finish reading."
It was moments like these that he cherished. When Natara was off in her thoughtful world of wisdom and he had the pleasure of being there with her. Those were the moments she opened up most to him; the moments he felt slightly closer to putting together the pieces of the puzzle that were Natara, even if these pieces were given to him in ways as mysterious as the person that told them.
She liked to read. After being sent to work on the Maskmaker case in San Francisco, she had acquired a hotel room. However, seeing it would take more time than planned, she rented a small house near the precinct. He'd been to it. She had the largest room – intended to serve as a living room – filled with books. Not just filled with books though; the walls were lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves. There was not an empty space visible on any one of those shelves either. Once she had left the room and he had been abandoned there, to wait for her to return. He began reading the spines of the books. Most were biographies. He plucked up the courage and took one off the shelf. There wasn't a page in it that didn't have an underlined portion with a note scribbled in her slanted cursive writing. One statement troubled him the most. She had underlined a sentence which was a quote from Simon Bolivar, his last words in fact.
"How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!"
That wasn't what troubled him however. What troubled him was the scribble next to it. In her perfect handwriting, she had written
Straight and fast.
He stared down at it and then took the book and slipped it in his bag, unnoticed. She reentered the room and he smiled, engaging once again in conversation. But all throughout, only three words ran through his mind.
Straight and fast.