AN: Just read Bond again, making myself feel talentless and inferior -grin- Anyone who hasn't already, and who doesn't mind slash and a brilliant, extremely well written story, GO NOW! After this of course, haha. I also wanted say that I might be a little slower at updating that usual. I have got quite a bit written up already, but I find that the smallest things are affecting the way I write and the way I think about what I write – things even like font face and size. So lately I've been rereading everything every time I finish another chapter, to make sure things are lined up properly. Yes, this will delay my updating, but it will also (hopefully!) increase story quality. And that's always a good thing, right? ^^
...Am I rambling? Yes? *Shuts up*
Thanks for your reviews (: keeps me smiling and writing!
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JKR, and is only allowed out to play with the plotbunny
- CHAPTER THREE -
Compatibility
"And this?"
"Lachiameda. A severe rash, most commonly occurring between the legs or armpit areas, where there is skin friction. Appears at first as a normal red rash, but when left untreated progresses rapidly from mere skin irritation to the beginnings of boils. Identified by the small, regular lumps of skin it raises, caused by the overdose from Lactilia, a seed used in hangover potions."
Hermione was accustomed to reading between the stern lines of Madame Louthe's face. She saw the slight softening between them, indicating that she was pleased with her progress. Hermione was pleased too – she thought that hospital life would seem… well, dull to her, after the adventure of the past seven years. She was proven wrong though, as Madame's patients brought her new challenges to face every day.
The woman waved her wand again, and the picture floating in the air fizzled to show another, an orange plant tapering down to red tentacles that ebbed back and forth.
Hermione opened her mouth to speak again, but Madame Louthe gestured for her workmate to answer the next question. She sat back, a little irked. He seemed to find that funny.
"Gandil. It's effects varies vastly, depending on the method of preparation. For example, it can be stewed to become an antidote to Lachiameda, chopped and eaten raw after half an hour's resting in direct sunlight as a source of iron, or ground to powder and smoked as a sedative." Malfoy smirked.
"And when taken in copious amounts?" Madame Louthe turned back to Hermione.
"It can become a toxic drug, addling with both a wizard's mind and magic, which not only makes the unstable individual to become a danger to others, but also himself as runaway magic often ends in extreme disaster." She continued fluidly.
The older woman sat back, satisfied with the day's theory. "For tomorrow, revise cures and maladies that surround the Icthus flower."
The two exited without another word, before settling into a familiar pattern outside Madame Louthe's doors. Malfoy's smirk faded a little, and she in turn frowned at the sullen expression replacing it. She decidedly ignored it – that last (and first) time she had asked what was wrong, he had not only snapped at her goodwill but somehow weaseled his way out of attending patient 849 in the same breath.
Patient 849 (Madame Louthe never bothered to give them names) had a habit of spontaneous projectile vomiting. Until they brewed a potion strong enough to counter whatever he had ingested, anyone working around him had to be in possession of good reflexes, incase another jet of unmentionables flew their way. In their first meeting, Malfoy had the misfortune of not knowing about patient 849's condition, and hadn't moved fast enough as the man opened his mouth to offer a greeting.
But that was in the past. She had figured out what they needed for the cure (just simple poppy seeds) and he was discharged three days ago. Malfoy's mood hadn't improved – she found herself instead of trying to treat him like another civil stranger, she was avoiding him at all costs.
But she couldn't hold onto her tongue any longer as she found herself pushing open the waiting room door by herself.
"Where do you think you're going?" She hissed at his retreating back.
"Out." He replied shortly.
"Malfoy, I swear I'll -"
"Tell on me?" He made an impatient noise. "I don't care, Granger." With that, he pushed past two patients, ducked under a bench and disappeared around the next corner.
Hermione allowed herself five seconds to calm down, before plastering on a smile and walking into the next room.
The next time he showed her his face again, she'd hex him into the next millennia.
.
"You enjoying your job, then?" Ginny commented mildly.
"And how're your N.E.W.T.S going?" Hermione asked sweetly.
Ginny pulled a face, and took another healthy swig of her drink. Today was one of the rare occasions she was spared from her studies and allowed out to Hogsmeade, but she was acutely aware of her schedule and wasn't going to stay long.
They were sitting in the Three Broomsticks, stewing over four mugs of butterbeer and the simple turn their lives had taken. In Harry's place was Luna, who had agreed brightly to come along when Ginny asked her the previous day. Harry had a lunch appointment with the Head of the Department of something or other, he said he'd make it up to them by treating them all to dinner the next day.
To Hermione and Ginny's great amusement, Ron spluttered indignantly at Luna being invited in place of Harry, but shut up quickly when the girl actually arrived. He'd taken to laughing with her a lot more than laughing at her, and even when she showed up with her mushroom robes he didn't even look at them twice, except when he commented on the interesting way they turned fluorescent green when in darkness.
"Seriously Hermione," Ron commented, his face red from something Luna had said, "I reckon if you don't pull out soon Malfoy'll drive you to do something that he'll regret."
"Like what?" She asked, amused.
"Oh, use your imagination." He grinned. "Please."
"Are you trying to get me fired?" She said indignantly, "Before I've even been properly hired in the first place?"
"So, you're trying to tell me that from three weeks and up until now, you've been nothing but completely civil and polite to each other? Not one thought of hexing something ingenious onto that pale face? Not one dream of giving him another one of those amazing right hooks?"
Hermione grimaced. "You're being awfully intense today, what's your problem?" she mumbled.
Ron sat back, laughing and somewhat pleased with himself. "Nothing. Just trying to prove you wrong, which I did."
She ignored that, and turned to Luna for some more pleasant conversation. "So what have you been doing lately? How are you handling seventh year?"
Luna smiled vacantly. "Oh, you know. The usual. But daddy's invited some relatives over, I've been hired as a guide of sorts during the holidays and I'm showing them around London, pointing out the sights and wonders and all."
Hermione wondered how they all fit into their house. "A bit cramped at your place at the moment then, isn't it?"
Luna looked surprised. "Oh no, everyone's settling fine. My cousin's sharing a bed with me though," she smiled again, "We haven't seen each other for five years, but we used to play together all the time."
"That's nice," Ginny said, "What's her name?"
Again, Luna looked surprised. "His name is Brett."
Ron choked on his butterbeer.
.
When she returned from Hogsmeade, Hermione found Malfoy lounging in the office they shared, adjacent to Madame Louthe's. His eyes were closed, his feet up on the desk, and one hand conducting some music she couldn't hear. She leaned against the doorway, her fingers twitching and her tongue tingling to aim a hex at the lazy brat. He opened one eye lazily, as if her vexation toward him had become physical. Her disapproval met his indifference in a sharp glare, and he sighed.
"If you do not start to act your age, I'm going to hex you." He frowned.
Feeling's mutual, she bristled. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He pushed himself away from the desk, to stand upright. "I mean, you are so single-minded in your desperation to please Louthe that you don't even see yourself becoming her."
Hermione thought of Madame Louthe – strict, professional, wise – and saw nothing wrong with aspiring to become a woman like her. Malfoy seemed to read her mind, and made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat. "You don't get it, do you? I said become her. Old, workbound, and no sense of flexibility at all."
She blinked, shocked at the attack. "You're despicable." She shot back, "Don't insult the only woman who seems to be giving you the time of day."
He grinned again, his eyes flashing. "Oh, trust me, Louthe isn't the woman I go to be given the time of day. That title has a waiting line."
"What is wrong with you?" She cried in sudden exasperation. "Why are you even here? You obviously don't care if you get this job or not, you're not working very hard for it, why don't you leave? Take up knitting or something. Go play Quidditch."
"That would be called giving up," Malfoy said breezily, ignoring her frustration. "Besides, the title of having successfully worked under Louthe does hold some merit."
"That's what you call an Order of Merlin?" She snapped. "Louthe's done great work in her youth, you should be glad that she's giving us the opportunity to learn from her."
"But she's not what she was," Malfoy sighed, "And what she's really capable of really doesn't shine bright through theory. You know testing us on theory is just an excuse to sit on her lazy arse and not do anything, right?"
"If that's how your twisted mind thinks, then you go ahead." She turned around, too busy arguing with herself to continue arguing with him. Her head told her to not do anything rash – her body however, was feeling very rash and her wand tingled against her palm.
It was then Madame Louthe walked in, one hand holding a bottle of mead. She waved the two away. "Lunch isn't over for another five minutes. I don't want to see either of you until then."
The two of them exited. In the hallways, and inexplicably, Malfoy laughed.
"You're so angry your hair's quivering."
Hermione opened her mouth, and then closed it. What could she say to that?
"You're so white you blend in with the wallpaper."
Oh. That was clever.
Malfoy remained silent, as if sensing her mortification at herself, and knowing it was more than anything he could induce in her. They stood around the waiting room, before returning promptly as the five minutes drew to a close outside Madame Louthe's office. If the woman had achieved one thing, it was to drill on-the-dot punctuality (not earlier, and definitely not later) into the two better than McGonagall or even Snape.
She opened her door, and they walked in without having to be asked. Hermione brought forth all the information she had read up on about the Icthus flower, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Malfoy folding his arm and doing more or less the same. But they were both surprised. After one relatively simple question each, they were ushered out again and into a patient room – to a man lying in obvious pain on a bed that had been stained yellow from the pus leaking from his boils. Hermione fought not to retch at the smell.
"This," Louthe waved her hand over the man cheerfully, "Is the prime example of an allergic reaction to the Icthus flower. Who can tell me why a simple allergic reaction can balloon out of control like this?"
Hermione felt a little green as she inhaled to speak. "He's gone and inhaled the plant directly without knowing he was allergic." Stupid, pretty, glowing purple blue flower.
"And the boils?"
"Whatever he's been eating or using – face cream, for example – was incompatible with the pollen, resulting in… that." Painful, itchy, disgusting boils. She repressed a shudder. She had seen more gruesome injuries than this, but this time the disgusting factor was still quite high.
She nodded, and then gestured to Malfoy. "Heal him."
He looked up, surprised, outraged. "I have to touch that?" Just as he finished his sentence, the man moaned as another boil popped, and the room was awash with a fresh wave of stink. Hermione groped blindly for her wand, hoping to cast a bubblehead charm, but Malfoy seemed to have been convinced that it was in everyone (and mostly his) best interest to get the man well again. He gestured roughly at Hermione, who only hesitated once before walking over and helping him gather together the necessary things.
"Three potions," He instructed, "To soothe so he'll shut up," - another moan - "On to reduce the swelling, and another to counteract the allergen."
They had to rub the second potion onto his boils directly – which not only meant touching the man, but coming dangerously close to the smell. Madame Louthe had frowned when Hermione made to cast her spell again, so she sighed (immediately regretting losing her air) and did without. Thankfully, the hospital's well supplied stores meant they hadn't needed to spend a few hours brewing the potions they needed. Combined with a few charms, they had the man healing and smelling nicer within ten minutes.
Hermione turned to the man, "If you're going to plant Icthus flowers -"
"And be a man," Malfoy muttered irritably.
"- Remember to not touch anything that might react with it beforehand." Hermione ignored him. "Incompatible herbs are dangerous combinations, please read up on whatever else you're growing."
Patient 857 nodded quickly, quailing under Malfoy's glare.
"Phew!" Hermione went to rinse her hands.
"And I was betting you were going to throw up," he sighed.
"And what? Have it combine with pus man to whiff? No thanks, that would've been enough to make me pass out."
He snickered, no doubt imagining Louthe's face is she found Hermione unconscious from a patient. Hermione turned around to stare at him. He was a good foot and some taller than her, and shook her head. It was Malfoy. Mocking and assuming superiority was not just a genetic defect, it was probably raised and nurtured in him as well.
The two left the room to report their success, leaving patient 857 offended, after all he had been through that day, also having been nicknamed pus man.
.
Hermione pulled a brush through her hair, weighing the pros and cons of tying it up into something.
Madame Louthe had alerted them that she had been called to a meeting, so they would be alone for the day and would be mostly taking over her rounds with patients.
The trouble was that magic really created an inexhaustible list of injuries able to be inflicted on a person. The interesting combinations created by accident or perhaps on purpose provided Hermione with enough challenges to stop her from getting bored on any day. When Madame Louthe's patients were all tended to, they were shipped off to ground floor and help with the more mundane (yet still unexpected) injuries and cursed there.
Searching for a hair tie, she held her hair back with one hand as she groped with the other, and then stuffed a piece of toast into her mouth as she hurried to apparate to St. Mungo's. She wasn't late, as she stepped into the hall at 8:00. She chewed absentmindedly on her piece of toast, waving at individuals and smiling at the paintings that took to noticing her. It was this damn fear of being late, she mused to herself, almost walking into Malfoy as she rounded the last corner. He made a disgruntled noise, and then an annoyed one as he saw her flattened bit of toast had crumbled against his shirt.
"Do keep your eyes in your head, Granger." He snapped.
She raised her eyebrows, but didn't bite back with half the fervor she might've only a few weeks ago. She had… gotten used to this ritual, for a lack of a better explanation. "Sorry," she said easily, "Though you were admiring your shoes quite intensely too, I have to say."
"Why do you have bread hanging out of your mouth?" He asked bluntly, sidestepping her retort.
She felt the old blush creeping up her neck. But she fought it down. There was nothing to feel embarrassed about. "Why is your shirt untucked?"
He smirked, and she groaned as she recognized one of his brilliant sexual innuendoes coming her way.
He smirked his way into the next room. She trailed after him warily, not entirely sure what to expect of the day. They were far from the children they were, but she wasn't entirely sure how smoothly this would go unsupervised.
.
"No!" She snapped half an hour later, "Unless you want to risk making him completely bald, the standard measure of potion must be ingested before any attempts to remove it by charms!"
"Do you ever get tired of listening to your own voice?" Malfoy demanded, ignoring her completely as he waved his wand.
Patient 861's expression was worried as he looked from Malfoy to Hermione, and started when she mentioned baldness. Even as his skin took three steps closer to a normal creamy complexion and away from the strange blue tint it had before, he twitched anxiously in his seat.
"Drink this," Malfoy ordered, and the little boy complied, tentatively sipping at the mixture, before drinking more eagerly at the honey-flavoured liquid.
Hermione hovered around the boy, anxiously waiting for something to happen.
"Look, I think a strand of hair just fell out," Malfoy taunted her from one side.
She muttered something she didn't think their patient should hear. On the other side of the room, Malfoy snickered anyway.
"You did not hear what I just said," she said flatly, waving her wand over the boy again and the blue vanished completely.
"I think I did. And I wouldn't mind doing so, as soon as we send little tot here on his way. Hurry up," he added impatiently. "He's not going to implode."
The boy turned large eyes to him.
"I'm being serious." Malfoy said defensively. "You're not."
"You can go back now," Hermione said kindly. However, the child, far from being comforted that he wasn't about to turn into a badly hexed blueberry, stumbled quickly out of the room fretting about imploding and baldness.
"Your sense of humour is just amazing. Bravo." She snapped.
"Kids are great, aren't they?"
"Oh, are you being maternal? Never pictured you as a young father, Malfoy."
"But I can picture you as a childless hag, fifty years from now."
She closed her eyes. Sometimes, just as she thought she was getting used to his banter, something nastier that hit too close to home would fly out of his mouth and shake her already shaking resolve that she could be civil with him. She stayed calm.
"Next?"
Patient 862 was a woman who was purple. Hermione thought they were having a rather rainbow display today, until she realized that the purple was bruising, and it covered nearly every inch of her exposed skin.
"Oh my god! What happened to you?" The woman would break down in sobs, dissolving in Hermione's comforting embrace. "My abusive -
She snapped out of it. Don't be hysterical. "Please, sit down. What happened?"
The woman moved gingerly, but she made her way to the bed without looking too distressed. She saw Malfoy sit up in vague interest, but he made no move to come and help the woman.
She hadn't replied to her question, so Hermione repeated it, more gently. She had such small, fearful eyes. She murmured something, and Hermione bent lower to catch it. "…just heal me?"
She frowned. "Unless this was just a simple accident, which I highly doubt, you have to tell me how you got them. We can't have something like this happening to you again."
"It was just a mistake," The woman whispered through cracked lips. And even they were purple, as slow blood oozed there.
Hermione frowned, but then Malfoy took over. Quickly, he probed with a few questions, careful to word them so that they didn't seem to pry into the why. After muttering about her for a little while, the skin began to turn an ugly yellow – a sign of healing. Hermione prepared the concoction, saying little to the woman.
"You need to drink this potion every day, as soon as you wake up, for another week before they'll clear up completely."
The woman nodded, bowing slightly as a sign of her appreciation, before scurrying out of the room like a mouse on the lookout for a cat. None of them moved to fetch the next patient, and the silence grew.
"How can you do that?" Hermione whispered.
He turned around impatiently. "What?"
"Just… not care. What if she gets hurt again?"
"Not our problem." He replied shortly.
Hermione bit her lip. "It is. We're meant to help people get better. You – I – We need to take preventative action as well, we can't just be the ones they go to afterwards."
Malfoy squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose, but made no comment. She ignored him, him and his nonexistent morals and values. She decided to talk to Madame Louthe about it later, and filed the thought away. Or perhaps Ginny, she mused, wondering if the Healer would care much more than Malfoy about her issue.
Patient 863 walked in. Or should she say, flopped in. Supported by a friend, he seemed as boneless as a worm and oozing something clear and sticky.
Malfoy groaned, and Hermione sighed.
.
The day drew to a close, with patient 882 walking away once again with all ten fingers and toes in their respective places. Hermione sat back, amazed and wiped out.
"Honestly, I'd like to meet some of these casters," Malfoy sniggered, "That last one was pure genius. To think, he had been walking around for the entire day with a finger sticking out of his -"
"I was the one who removed it, Malfoy!" Hermione snapped, "No need grace me with your vivid description."
He ignored her, seemingly having quite a good time describing. "And the way he could still wiggle his toe even it was on his nose!" He chortled.
She bit back a smile as she remembered the sight of 882, cross eyed and looking at his… toe-nose. She waved her hands as if to physically remove the urge. "Might've been nicer for you to start laughing after he had left the room." She replied as frostily as she could.
He rolled his eyes. "No bloody way. He'd been in the waiting room for the whole day too."
"Honestly, the way you laugh at other people's misfortune -"
Suddenly, he was in her face. Startled, Hermione stepped back. "Okay, why don't we get this straight right now? I can't stand another minute of your preaching. They're the ones who get themselves in whatever mess it is, our job is to clean it up, and not pine with them. In exchange for that service, I'm allowed to laugh at whatever walks in through those doors. You take however high a moral ground you want, just don't expect me to want any part in it. Are we clear?" He was close enough she could see his grey eyes glinting in annoyance.
She stared back at him, feeling her anger rising again. "Let's get this straight," she pushed her hair out of her face, "You're working at a hospital, and you're getting a kick out of how bad people's injuries are? You'll help these people, and then laugh at them?"
"That's about it, yeah." He leaned against a bench, folding his arms.
She shook her head. "Why?"
He looked bored. "Because 'I get a kick out of it'."
"Don't give me that shit," she snapped. He looked up, vaguely interested at how she was angry enough to start swearing at him. "Stop trying to feed me crap. Malfoys don't want to help people, stop them from hurting. They want to laugh at the hurt. You're not getting a gold star for working here, yet you still don't quit. Why. Are. You. Here?"
He gave her a level stare. It stopped her better than any insult, because the amount of open sincerity in his gaze was disarming. Anger was quickly whipped out by disorientated confusion.
"Maybe even Malfoys can change." He said, almost inaudibly, before pushing his way out of the room.
Hermione felt stunned, petrified, and then resurrected again within a space of two seconds. She shook her head, as if trying to get water out of her ears.
"Yeah, like after they've suffered a stint in Azkaban." She muttered to herself, as she, too, left the room.
She really needed to talk to Madame Louthe. Maybe sometime around now.
.
In the end, she had Ron meet up with her for dinner as Madame Louthe wasn't able to be reached. It took a while for her to get over it, and convince herself that the universe wasn't working against her. Louthe had just decided not to go back to her office after the meeting, opting instead to go straight home. When was the last time she did that? Before Hermione had gotten her Hogwarts letter, that's when.
But the universe was not working against her.
They ate at a Muggle café, and she watched with half a smile on her face as Ron prodded the fake flowers.
"Blimey, these feel gross."
"They make them furry so it looks right, not so it feels right." She said patiently.
"Can't muggles just grow real plants?"
Hermione shrugged. "Maybe they don't live long enough, or maybe they don't get looked after properly."
Ron sat back as their meals came, amazed. "They can't even raise a plant properly?" The Weasley's garden was full to overflowing with flowers and shrubs and herbs that thrived under Mrs. Weasley's adoring care (though occasionally uprooted by the lessened yet still constant presence of the gnomes).
"It's just a shop, Ron," She said as she tucked into her lamb, "It's not their home."
He opened his mouth, then closed it, shrugged and was soon distracted by the smell on his plate.
"Good food, tho'." He muttered.
Hermione grinned, and shook her head. London's night life passed by them – the light was leaking out of the sky, and the lampposts started switching on. The number of people lessened, but never quite disappeared completely. She let a feeling of calm and contentedness steal over her, and tried her soup.
"Anything happen today?" Ron asked after a while.
She screwed up her face. "Yeah yeah. I can't just ask you out for a nice dinner."
"Nope," He popped the 'p'.
She sighed. "I think…" Then she stopped and frowned. "Well, I don't, but then some things…" Stopping again, Hermione tried to think before she spoke. "And just when I've decided that I've figured him out, or even better, decided that I don't actually care, he just does something and it gets me –" She stopped herself again, before bursting out again with "You know? I think I will hex him one day. Just for the fun of it. Then I'll probably do it again, just because it feels good. Yes?" She ended on a growl.
Ron looked amused over his drink. "Er, okay?"
She laughed, and even that ended with her frustrated. "Yeah, it's just Malfoy. I can't really ask him to leave, but he won't tell me why he's there, and he's not hindering anything, but he's not making it pleasant. Well he's not doing anything to me, but the way he treats these poor patients! One man came in one day with his fingernails torn off and all Malfoy could do was look disgusted and say yuck."
It was Ron's turn to look disgusted. "Thanks for that, Hermione. I'll just stop eating now. Not to side with Malfoy or anything."
She waved him away. "And then he had the gall to ask why I'm mad at him? Stupid – bloodless – Slytherin – ferret!" She stabbed angrily at her plate.
"Hermione, put down the fork." Ron grinned, thoroughly enjoying being the reasonable one for once.
She looked at her salad, nothing having remained on her plate but a single sliced cherry tomato. She grimaced, and then quickly waved her wand and the greens floated back onto her plate. But she pushed it away.
"Now, how about you explain this to me properly, so I can properly join you in insulting Malfoy?"
She laughed again, and shook her head. "Okay, I get it. I'm being too touchy around him."
Ron looked surprised. "What? No! Don't stop. I want to complain about him too."
Rolling her eyes, Hermione turned back to her soup, with only one frown line between her brows.
She's catch Madame Louthe early before work tomorrow, or she'd stay behind and wait for her. Either way, she wasn't going to let herself go prematurely grey, just because she needed all her wits to beat back the unrelenting flow of witty comments and innuendoes he was so proud of.
Ron watched Hermione plot away over her dessert, and squinted up at the sky. They'd all grown up, these past few months. Literally, yet emotionally and mentally as well. The animosity he felt towards Malfoy would always be there. He didn't see that fading away any time soon. But he could see them coming to terms with each other, understanding that dogs chased cats and just leave it alone. How he could valiantly persevere though, with Hermione continually harping on exactly the reasons why he disliked Malfoy, wasn't helping.
He sighed, and dug into his own plate of cake. His role this time was to be the listening friend. At least he had the liberty of ignoring him when they met. Hermione had to work with him, and be civil with him, fake camaraderie with the slimy git in front of patients.
Ron screwed up his nose.
Or maybe he hadn't really changed that much. Maybe they should just all stop kidding themselves. Maybe he should change the subject.
"Listen, Hermione."
She looked up. "Hmm?"
"Don't lose yourself in this, okay? Ginny hasn't heard from you in a while, you know she might need some help in one or two of her subjects. And even Harry's been over at the Burrow more than you have. Dad's been asking about you too, how you've been adjusting, and even I haven't seen you enough to answer them properly. Slow down a bit, fit the rest of your life in your work, okay? You're not old enough to marry your work yet." He said with a faint smile.
She looked alarmed, then disappointed. "I'm so sorry, Ron. I had no idea. Of course, I'll come over this weekend. I haven't even thanked your dad properly yet for helping find work."
Ron nodded, then squeezed her hand. "Don't worry about it, I'm just reminding you. You're getting so caught in work. Honestly Hermione." He teased her.
She accepted his banter with a light smile, but mean words echoed in her head.
"Old, workbound, and no sense of flexibility at all."
She tried to shut the words out, as well as the taunting face of their owner. She didn't need this, not after an entire day with him.