Note: I thought this would be the easiest chapter to write. HA!

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You make it hard

Tearing yourself away from me now

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"No need to get excited, beastie," Deryn says to Tazza, who's commenced wriggling in her arms as she climbs down the ladder from the gastric channel. She fights back a yawn; it's been a long cruel day and this is the last stop before her bed. "It's the same gondola we left two minutes ago."

Tazza disagrees, obviously, because he doesn't stop squirming about. He's rather too big for Deryn to cart around anyway, and the squirming means she lets go of him instead of setting him down. He doesn't seem to mind.

She gets a faceful of tawny thylacine shoulder for her troubles and is spitting out fur (and scrambling to pick up the leash again) when she realizes why Tazza's so excited.

There are boots on the floor in front of them, and attached to those boots is His Highness the Archduke of Austria-Este.

Barking spiders. She was hoping to ignore him all the way to Tokyo.

"I have to talk to you," he says, as if he's ready for war.

She glances around, but it's just them… and Bovril and Tazza. The thylacine's twisted the leash halfway round them both, and now he's hopping up on his hind legs to sniff at Bovril, who's making fussing noises and is reaching out to Deryn, little clawed fingers flexing and grasping, eyes wide and pitiful.

"Mr. Sharp," it says. Pleading. "Magnanimous."

Lord only knows what it's on about now. Magnanimous. What does that even mean?

"Aye, all right, all right," she says, surrendering with an irritated tug on Tazza's leash, "but not with the whole sodding zoo here."

Heart thudding, she takes Tazza back to Dr. Barlow's cabin. The lady boffin might not want her for an assistant in Japan, but that hasn't cut down her "cabin boy" duties aboard ship. Deryn doesn't mind, to be honest; it's one more thing to keep her mind off of… well, off the boy shadowing her heels.

Punching him felt lovely in the moment, but it was going too far; he didn't deserve it, and it certainly hasn't done her a squick of good in the hours since.

She's sorry and ashamed she hit him. She's angry at him for being a perfect ninny. She's sad that they're not friends. She's terrified he's gone and told the captain her secret. And she's dead heartbroken – still – that he doesn't love her.

She was so sure he would, once he knew. And maybe he would have… if she hadn't bollixed everything up and but good.

Why couldn't she have just kept her sodding hands to herself?

Tazza deposited, Deryn stands in the corridor for a moment, wondering where on earth they should go this time. It depends, she supposes, on what he's intending to do. He looks fidgety, but not in an I'm going to hit you back sort of way – not that he would ever. She's a girl now, and archdukes don't hit girls.

No, it's more like an I have bad news for you fidget. He won't look her in the face.

Her heart drops another few degrees. Swallowing, she tells herself to be a soldier about it, and says to him, "My cabin, then."

That way, when he leaves, she can just collapse onto the bed and be miserable straightaway. More convenient.

"Oh," he says, plainly startled. And uneasy: he'd been the one, after all, to point out that they shouldn't be alone together. As if she's going to make a grab for him now. "Are you certain…"

No, and if he blethers any longer she might run for it. She covers her fear with bravado, just like a boy: hands on her hips and demanding, "D'you want to talk to me or not?"

He looks at her. The wound under his eye has gone purple-red, she notices; it makes him seem more fragile, not more tough. Guilt hits her low in the gut, and her knuckles throb.

"Yes," he says. "I do."

Bovril chooses that moment to stretch towards her once more. Deryn sighs and puts her hands out, collecting the beastie from Alek's shoulder, taking care not to accidentally touch His Royalness in the process.

The loris curls up around her neck, warm and solid, making little coos of pleasure. Well. At least one of them is happy.

She leads the way again, growing more and more certain with each step that he's told the captain, or is going to tell the captain, and this is only a courtesy visit before her bum is tossed off the ship.

"Mr. Sharp," Bovril says, pleased with itself.

"Don't start, beastie," she says to it in an undertone. She's missed the loris, truth be told, but she's not going to let it know. "This is all your fault anyway."

It chuckles. She scowls.

In her cabin, Deryn goes to stand by the bed, arms crossed over her chest, while Alek shuts the door and looks uncomfortable. It's dark in here, but she's not going to whistle up the glowworms just so she can be humiliated in better light.

Bovril hops down from her shoulder and busies itself investigating what's laid across her bed: her dress shirt, still not clean despite her continued efforts. It sneezes at the spices and rubs its nose, clearly put out. Serves the sodding beastie right, if you ask her.

"Well?" she demands of Alek.

He takes a breath. "I've decided that… that I misspoke earlier. I do know what you are."

I don't even know what you are!

That's optimistic of you.

Splinters jab – in her stomach this time. She doesn't care, she tells herself fiercely. It doesn't matter what he thinks. But she can't help asking: "And what's that?"

Alek squares his shoulders and lifts his chin, princely and determined. "A brilliant airman," he says, no hint of doubt or mocking anywhere, only absolute certainty. "And my friend."

Deryn stares. Just stares.

"What?" she says. It comes out a whisper.

He rubs the back of his neck, suddenly a boy and not an archduke any longer. "Or rather, that is, I would like to be friends again. If you'll still have me."

"But –" She's bewildered, then elated, and then remembers to be angry. "A few hours ago, you wanted to stuff me back into skirts and send me to the kitchen!"

He swallows, looking sheepish. "Yes, well… I was wrong. You belong here. You always have."

"Barking spiders," she says, still staring at him. That dog comes to mind, and she wonders if she got it backwards; maybe he's the one slinking hopefully back. "I didn't think I hit you that hard! Has one of the boffins seen you? Your skull's not cracked, is it?"

"No, no, only bruised. And expertly so," he says, touching the battered skin under his eye with a wry smile that does nothing to make her more confident about the state of his attic. "But I did talk to Dr. Barlow about the, ah, proper role of women in society. It was… enlightening."

Icy fear grabs her heart and stops it. Mindful of the thin fabricated balsa walls, she steps closer to him and hisses, "You told Dr. Barlow I was a girl?"

He has the nerve to look indignant. "Of course not! It was a general sort of conversation only. I never mentioned you."

She puts her hands over her face in disbelief. Maybe not, but she's not going to be reassured. What was she thinking, telling him? - he can't keep a bloody secret to save his life! If he doesn't blurt them right out (after less than three days in Istanbul!), he accidentally drops enough hints for anyone half as clever and sneaky as the lady boffin to puzzle things through.

Oh, that's right - she told him the truth because she wanted him to fall madly in love with her. Now she hasn't got that or a well-kept secret. Sodding hell...

"This just gets worse and worse," she says, muffled because she's talking into her palms. She lifts her hands away and looks hard at him. "Is that all you wanted to tell me?"

He hesitates, looking more fidgety than ever. "Well - you haven't answered my question. Can we still be friends?"

Something very much like grief rolls up from her stomach and lodges high in her chest. Right where her heart used to be.

"Aye," she says, voice dull to her own ears. "Aye, we're friends. We can be barking friends until forever."

He actually smiles at that… until he gets a clear look at her. Then his smile falters and disappears. "Dyl-Deryn. You don't have to - that is, if you don't want anything to do with me, I suppose I deserve it – no, I know I deserve it; I had no right to speak to you like that –"

That's wonderful to hear… but it isn't what she wants to hear most.

She draws a ragged breath. "That's not it."

Those three words take all she has, and she hopes he figures the rest out on his own, because she can't say it again. Blisters, she didn't even mean to say it the first time!

After a moment his eyes widen. "Oh."

"It's all right," she says. It isn't. Suddenly she's too exhausted and frustrated and sick at heart to be standing any longer, so she sits on the edge of the bed. Slumps over, elbows on her knees, and stares at the floor between her feet. "I knew better from the beginning. It's only… I'm no good at not having the things I want, aye?"

Hesitantly, he comes to stand next to her. "Like flying, you mean."

She nods. And you, she adds in her mind.

"I'm sorry," he says softly, sitting beside her. One hand touches her shoulder for a moment before he reconsiders and drops it back into his lap; brief as it was, the contact burns right through her. "Truly, I am. But I've only known what you are for three days."

"Aye, and I've only known you a month longer than that," she retorts. She studies him a moment, then decides to ask the question that's been haunting her since the machine room: "Is it because I'm not… really Dylan?"

"No!" he says, quickly and vehemently. "God's wounds, nein. I would rather not kiss boys."

"So it's just me, then," she says, feeling very small.

He looks at her and then at his hands. Sighs ruefully. Does not disagree with her. Instead, he says, "This is all very complicated."

"No it's not," she says, choosing to ignore the wee fact that he's completely right. "Either you love me or you don't. Simplest thing in the world. And you don't, so that's that."

Even she's impressed by how brisk and soldierly her voice sounds. You'd have no idea what it costs her.

It's not so bad, really. She can be an airman... for a few more years at the most, anyway, and then she'll have to find another way to fly. But she will, surely. And just as surely, somewhere along the way, she'll meet another handsome, clever boy with a good heart and sad eyes, who'll make her heart stutter and skin prickle.

This won't kill her. It only feels that way.

"Perhaps that's so," he says slowly. Then glances at her and away again, all in a flash. "But I did enjoy, ah…"

She lifts an eyebrow. "Kissing?"

"Yes," he confesses, coloring red. "It was… exciting. And there was the most curious sensation. Almost like electricity, I suppose."

Hope flickers to life, like glowworms whistled up in the darkness, and she sits a little straighter. "Dummkopf. That's exactly how I feel."

He blinks. "Is it?"

She lifts her hand toward his face. He nearly flinches, but checks himself, and she gently, barely, carefully touches the skin on his cheek right below the bruise. The hand she's using is the one she smacked into him, and her knuckles look purple and raw in the dim light. A proper matched set, they are.

Sorry, is what this touch means. She hopes the soft expression on his face means he understands.

She hopes.

"Every time I see you," she admits.

"Really," he says, in wonder. "Do you mean, that right now…?"

Heat has bloomed under her skin, and she wants very much to loosen her middy's tie. She takes her hand away from his face before she catches fire.

"Aye," she says, sounding like a breathless girl and (for once) not caring. He knows what she is. "Don't you?"

"Yes," he says, barely audible over the sudden mad thumping of her heart.

Those green eyes are very, very close.

"Go on, then," she whispers. A dare or a prayer or a plea, she's not certain which, but she feels the whole barking world holding its breath, waiting for what might happen next. Herself included. A week ago, she would've grabbed him and kissed him – but she's already tried that, and it hasn't worked out very well, aye?

He puts his hand on her shoulder again, like an experiment, and this time he leaves it there. She holds perfectly still, and after a moment, he moves his fingers up to her neck. Along her jaw. Curving around to cup the back of her head.

If someone interrupts this now, she thinks wildly, she'll have no choice but to throw them out the sodding window.

Alek's eyes drop to her mouth. She can feel his breath shivering across the skin of her face. They're so close – if she just leans forward a squick -

And then he drops his hand and pulls back and says –

"I can't."