Author's Notes: Well, it turns out that I'm incapable of writing oneshots. There's going to be a few more rounds in here, it seems, each of 'em oneshots in their own right, but they'll build on one another. Tell me what you think, please, as I just thrive on reviews.

Round Two:

Susan

***

Susan was feeling a little paranoid, and she knew it. Why she kept checking after all this time she didn't know, but she couldn't help it. She was fidgety all day if she didn't know it was there, and she couldn't fall asleep unless it was out of her sight – and exactly where she left it.

She tossed under the sheets angrily over to her side. Susan didn't like it when she had to do something. Yes, she liked routines, the orderliness, straightforward and simpleness of them, but she didn't have to keep them if she didn't want to. She liked working because it made her feel normal, but she didn't have to. She liked drinking tea because it warmed her up and helped her think, but she didn't have to. She didn't like checking for the knife because she had to, and it was tonight that Susan was trying to convince herself that she didn't.

Death's granddaughter remembered finding it in the shrubs, practical and simple. Why she'd picked up the darn thing she didn't really know, but as she had glanced around for that troublesome Assassin she had slipped it from the branches before she'd gone back inside. She'd taken it home and hidden it in her drawer, and ever since then just knew that he'd be coming back for it.

Susan slid from under the covers angrily and walked over to her drawer in resignation. She just couldn't be at peace as long as she didn't know. Death's granddaughter slid the drawer open and shuffled through the almost all black dresses (folded very neatly) until she came to the blade. Susan sighed in relief with a satisfied nod to see it safe and sound.

"So that's where you hid it," a thoughtful voice mused.

Susan whipped around, brandishing the dagger dangerously. Teatime was by the window, holding himself up by his arms. She lived in an apartment currently, and was three stories up. The fact that he was holding himself with the flats of his arms on her windowsill thirty feet above hard pavement was a little unnerving.

"Doesn't that hurt?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.

"A little, but there's a tiny crack that I can shove my feet into. I don't mind so much, though." He shrugged, almost fell, caught himself, and grinned charmingly as he shuffled to a more stable position. It was all a little discombobulating. "May I have my knife back, please?"

Susan scoffed in disbelief.

"Seeing as last time we saw one another you said the next time we saw one another you'd try to kill me, I think I'll hold onto it."

"But if you give me the knife," he argued, "you won't have to worry about me coming back for it."

"I won't have to worry about anything," she replied with a glare.

Teatime sighed sadly.

"How about I rain-check killing you? I really miss my knife."

"Don't you have another one?" Susan asked.

"Yes, but that one was my favorite."

"Your favorite knife.?" It was and it wasn't a question.

He nodded.

"You know how some children just have this one teddybear, that they just can't bear to part with, and if they have any other it just isn't the same?"

Now he was comparing knives and teddybears. How crazy could he get?

"Please?" he seemed so… abject and pitiful. It was hard to believe this was the man who had nearly drowned her. He really didn't seem like a 'man' at all. Teatime pursed his lips in agitation. "If you don't give me the knife I'll come in and take it."

"That'd make you a thief."

"No, you stole my knife. I'm just coming to get it back."

"No," she corrected confidently. "You left your knife and I picked it up. That is not thievery."

"Why did you take it?" he asked curiously, eyes boring down and to the left thoughtfully.

"You'd just tried to kill me and I had no way of knowing that you wouldn't again. Why do you think I did?"

The Assassin shrugged again, this time managing to keep a good hold on the windowsill.

"I don't know. I just want my knife back."

Susan raised a brow.

"And you say you'll come back and kill me later?"

He brightened and nodded emphatically.

"I'm taking a rain-check," he confirmed.

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously as she thought. She really didn't want to give it back, if only to agitate him, but when it all came down to it, at the very least she wouldn't have to keep checking to see if the darn thing was still there or not. Not to mention, he sounded quite serious about coming and getting it and she had a hunch that that would be a bad thing.

"Oh, fine," she sighed. "Wait here."

Susan went out of her bedroom, into the living area, grabbed a poker (there was no way she'd give him the dagger if she didn't have a weapon of her own), came back, and slowly approached the window. She held it out to him blade first with her left hand, holding the poker with her right. She was ready to lift it up and knock him over the edge at any second if she had to.

Teatime grasped the flat of the blade with his thumb and pointer finger and flipped the small knife from her fingers. He caught the hilt easily, the moonlight glinting from its silvery surface and hitting his black glass eye eerily. Susan took a couple steps back to be on the safe side as he swung his legs up over the sill, still staring at his small dagger. He gazed at it for a few more seconds before grinning up at her.

"Thank you," he said simply.

Susan dipped her head apprehensively.

"Now, if you could go…?"

"Oh, Susan, but I just arrived," he replied as he stood to his feet.

"This isn't a social call. It's after midnight, for goodness sake, Teatime!"

He visibly flinched.

"Teh-ah-tim-eh. We've been over this before."

Each syllable had the strength of a crack of thunder. Susan smirked.

"Have we, now? Well, Teatime, unless you want to go over it again GET OUT!"

He was standing in front of her before she could blink, him glaring at her with his tiny knife a few inches from her cheek and his face not much farther. She didn't flinch, though.

"Teatime," she repeated.

He continued to glare at her for a few more seconds, but then his gaze softened dangerously. Yes, dangerously.

"Rain-check," he said softly, brushing the flat of the blade against her throat. "But I'll be back."

Again he was a black blur, like the first time she saw him, and he was out the window in a flash. Somehow, though, Susan had a hunch that she'd won this round, and fell asleep grinning.