A/N: Hope you aren't sick of my OC yet...btw, her name is pronounced to rhyme with "charity".
He glared down at the girl standing in his doorway.
The waitress from the Gunga Diner. Arete. She wore black jeans and a plain white t-shirt. A red bandanna covered her hair. Her left hand clutched a blue plastic bucket, the weight of which forced her shoulders askew.
"Mr. Kovacs," Arete said in the tone of someone greeting an acquaintance on the street. Her brown eyes were wide but calm. Her lips curved in that almost-smile that always played around her mouth.
He stared blankly.
Her gaze played past him, peeking into his apartment. He watched her absorb the dirty dishes and empty cans piled on the crooked table, the bare bulb dangling nakedly from the stained ceiling, the curling stacks of newspapers. He saw his living space with her eyes.
He raised his right hand and rested it on the doorframe.
Arete cleared her throat. "I owe you a thanks. Thought I could make it up to you." She lifted the bucket slightly to indicate its contents: rags, a sponge, bottles of cleaning solution.
A twitch raced from his mouth to his eyes. "You don't owe me anything," he rasped.
"Yes, I do," she insisted, raising her eyebrows as if to communicate by some secret means.
He shook his head and backed to shut the door.
Arete stuck her booted foot between the frame and the closing door. She looked up and down the hall quickly. "You have a very interesting face, Mr. Kovacs." Her voice was a hurried undertone as she cocked her head, eyebrows arching deliberately. "The kind of face that a person could read anything they want into."
A sound like a growl escaped the red-haired man's throat.
She searched his eyes. "You show me nothing; I see what I want."
He grabbed the hem of her shirt and dragged her into his room. The bucket clattered to the floor as he slammed the door shut and backed her against it. The inside of her nose prickled at the rotten-leaves smell of the apartment and the sour sweat odor of the man himself.
"What do you know?" he barked.
Arete shrank from the still blue disinterest of his eyes. Her eyes flickered to his strong, calloused hands. His shoulders were broad, his neck muscles corded with anger.
This was a bad idea...
"Please," she begged, ashamed of her fear. "It was your voice!"
He stepped back, lifting his chin, and pondered for a moment. "Unlikely," he finally muttered.
Arete felt a trickle of sweat course down between her shoulder blades. "But true," she dared. She declined to mention the familiar, if somewhat unpleasant, smell she had detected on Rorschach. The same odor which now filled her nose.
He turned away, scratching his jaw and muttering to himself. His feet weaved among the tottering stacks of newspaper unerringly.
The woman bit her lip, then leaned down to draw a trash bag from the bucket. She unfolded the black plastic and shook it open. She willed herself to calm down and began to pluck refuse from the table. The thunk of an empty can hitting the floor as it fell to the bottom of the trash bag roused the red-haired man from his reverie.
"What are you doing?"
Arete did not respond. She continued her task, barely blinking as a roach scuttled out from beneath the plate nearest her hand. Kinda wish I'd brought gloves, she thought ruefully. Setting down the trash bag, she began to carry plates and utensils to the sink.
The man regarded her in amazement. She began to run water from the tap, wondering how hot it might get. She let it flow and returned to the bucket for a sponge and a bottle of dish detergent. Arete almost laughed at the thunderstruck look on his face. He practically radiated curiosity.
"Possibly insane?" he mused.
She did laugh at that.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and paced a few steps. Then he took a seat at the chair by the table. Arete turned back from the sink and smiled. She wanted to challenge him. Tell me 'no', she would say. Tell me to get the hell out. But something inside warned her not to taunt him. So she kept her smile pleasant and neutral, as she had the first day she had served him at the Gunga Diner. Even then she had sensed something powerful about him.
"Don't need this."
Arete looked around the apartment pointedly. "Yeah, I think you do," she responded, struggling to restrain the insolence that threatened to tinge her voice.
"I don't need this." The red-haired man flexed his fingers, avoiding her eyes. "Rorschach doesn't need this."
She blinked. "You are Rorschach."
His face told her nothing as his gaze swung up to meet hers. After a long moment during which he moved not at all, Arete turned back to the sink and, grabbing a filthy bowl, plunged it under the now reasonably-hot water.