Disclaimer: I do not own Richelle Mead's world or characters.

Chapter Seven

Adrian

Because my mother thought of pretty much everything, we somehow ended up with a red tablecloth and evergreen scented candles. I asked her why she'd chosen a Christmas scented candle, and her only answer was "I like trees." That was definitely a lie.

Sydney sat across the square table table from me. Mom sat at the side diagonal to my left. The bowl of salad was in the exact center with the bread laid on a plate to the left. Sydney had spent twenty minutes spreading a very thin layer of butter on each piece. I almost wanted to add more to my piece, since I could barely taste it, but I wasn't going to do that.

Mom cut her spaghetti just enough so that she could still twirl it around her fork and not get sauce on her face. Sydney cut it so small, tiny pieces kept falling back onto the plate when she tried to scoop it onto the tines.

I didn't bother with either, which got me deservedly disapproving looks from both of them. They were just lucky I'd remembered my mother's napkin-on-the-lap rule.

Look at you, Aunt Tatiana spat, having a nice, normal dinner. How tame. How unlike you. You could be off doing bigger things. You could be helping Jill. Who knows what she's going through right-

"How was your day, Mom?" I asked, cutting her off.

"Marvelous!" Mom said, twirling the pasta. "I had brunch with some old friends and spent the day at the gallery."

I didn't have a comment for that, but Sydney did. "Gallery?"

"Yes. There's a small show right now. They're showing sculptures from roughly a dozen or so moroi artists."

She looked to me. "Maybe you could enter a painting."

"I'd have to paint new ones," I said.

Sydney frowned. "What happened to the others?"

I didn't answer, and we ate in silence again for what seemed like a long time. A pool of melted wax was forming in the middle of the candle.

"This is very good," Mom said to neither of us in particular.

"Thanks," Sydney said. Her voice was always so small around people who she deemed above her. She sounded almost childlike. I repeated the gesture without the change in tone.

"So," Mom said, "Sydney. Have you been to Court before?"

She nodded. "Yes. Three times."

"Oh? When was this? I've never seen you here before."

Sydney pushed the second half of her serving of spaghetti around her plate as she spoke. "Once was with Adrian and a guardian on a spirit related um..." She looked to me, questioning.

"Fiasco," I said with a smile.

"We usually call them missions," she continued. She sounded a little unsure at the topic, but she certainly wasn't going to go around saying we'd been on a fiasco. "I was here twice concerning guardian Hathaway."

"Oh, Rose," Mom nodded. "Yes. I know her."

"From your tone, I assume you know her well?"

"Somewhat," she said. "I guess I do."

I smiled. "I don't think you do. You didn't sound scared enough."

Sydney laughed at that. "Yeah. Rose is... something."

We both nodded.

The rest of the meal went by in silence, not that there was much of it left. Sydney excused herself first, and my mother soon after that. I was left with an empty plate and dishes that I knew I'd have to do before Sydney drove herself mad.

Scrubbing the first plate, I listened to the news station my mom had put on. Sydney had come and sat in the armchair to watch. It wasn't very interesting -something about foreign countries and things like that. It was always foreign countries, wasn't it?

"Do you want help?" Sydney asked.

"Nope," I said, although I kind of did. My hand hurt from earlier, and the last thing I wanted to do was scrub, but it wasn't excruciating, and after the things I'd done instead of looking for Sydney, I should be doing more manual labor than this.

You shouldn't feel guilty. If she's really as amazing as you say, she should have been able to get herself out.

Will you shut up?

After a while, Sydney went back into our room. I hurried to finish the last dish and met her in there.

She knelt on the floor, scrubbing the shoes she'd gotten from the woman on the train with what looked like one of the hand towels from the bathroom. I knelt in front of her so our knees touched.

I didn't want to pester her, but I couldn't help but bring it up, if only to see her reaction to the subject. "You didn't finish you plate."

Knowing she'd keep her expression as normal as possible, I looked at her aura as I spoke, and it did seem to make her nervous for a second. "It was a large serving."

"You didn't eat breakfast. You barely ate lunch."

"I was working during breakfast, and I had a sandwich at lunch. Is it a problem that I didn't want chips with it?"

There was no way to argue either of those statements, at least not in words. I knew that this was something beyond simply being distracted and not liking chips. Sydney wasn't like that. And she did like chips. "Is it because your worried about Jill?"

She put the first shoe aside and picked up the next one. The cloth was surprisingly clean after how hard she'd scrubbed. "Nothing's wrong."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!" But she shook her head. "You don't have to babysit me."

Babysit. All your trying to do is help, and she can't respect that.

I wanted to tell Aunt Tatiana to shut up, but the worst part was, the thought had crossed my mind in my own voice first. No, I didn't believe it either, but it crossed my mind. "i just want to make sure your okay."

"I know." She shook her head. Her voice was quiet: just above a whisper. "Sorry. It's just something I thought was behind us now. When you bring it up, I feel like it puts more pressure on me then help. It's like your watching me to make sure I do what I'm supposed to. I appreciate the gesture, it just feels kind of overbearing sometimes."

As much as I wanted to defend my side and spurt off a list of reasons for being so attentive, I was just happy she was talking about the deeper stuff again. And, though I wondered if it was a good idea, I tried to push deeper -while we were already dredging under the surface. "Is that why you don't want to tell me what happened in that place? You don't want me to be too worried?"

She shook her head again -she was doing that a lot lately, but she still didn't look up. "Not exactly. It's more me than you."

"Can you at least explain why you can't explain? I'd really like to know. I want to help you. I want to know what you've been through."

"Every time I talk about re-education, all I can see is what happened there and who got hurt and why and when. Mostly the why and the sensations. Sometimes, it's just one, because sometimes it's just more prominent. Sometimes, it was the only one I could think about because It was just that strong. If not for the surrounding memories, I wouldn't know where that moment in time was taking place, if anyone was there, or where the sensation was coming from..." She trailed off. Her hand had stopped moving and had even gone limp. The rag hung from her fingertips over the shoe sitting on her lap, her other hand's fingers looped into the heal. Her eyes bore not into me but off. It gave me this vague, creepy sense that I needed to look behind me.

"Sydney," I said.

She jerked a little, just enough to make her hair quiver and her hand twitch. The rag fell onto the shoe, and she quickly grabbed it and started scrubbing again. She was trembling.

"You don't want to talk about it?" I asked. I guessed the normal phrasing of that question was Do you want to talk about it? But I figured she wouldn't, and it felt pointless to ask if she would.

"No. Sorry, I just- can't."

I watched her finish the shoe and brush off her pants before she stood. Sydney put the shoes back under the end of the bed and went to put the hand towel into the hamper in the bathroom.

While she was gone, I moved from the carpet to the bed. I knew something was going on, and I knew she was worried about it. I knew whatever it was, it was about Jill, and I would disapprove. Therefor, I knew it put Sydney in danger. All I wanted to do was stop it, but the one thing I knew was that she wasn't going to let me.

So we'd make the best of the time we had.

When she came back in and saw me under the quilt, she half-smiled at me and shut the door behind her. "It's a little early."

"Why? Do we have all night?"

She frowned. "No."

"What, you have to get up in the morning?"

She shrugged and crawled under the blanket on her side of the bed. "It still smells like hotel in here."

"Yeah, but that's why we're both here."

Her thin lips turned up once again. "Maybe it'll start to smell like you soon."

"Or you... Oh, that'd be nice."

She buried her face into my shoulder and laughed. Her hand was up by her throat, I could feel it, and I realized she was holding the cross. I wrapped my hand around hers. "I hope you washed that."

The quiet laughter that had just trickled back into silence erupted again. It was infectious, and I wondered -for a moment- if she was laughing at what I'd said or just laughing because she could, because she rarely could. Either way, it got me laughing too.

"I can't," she said, finally. "Won't the paint come off?"

"Maybe, but so will the Sheridan."

Somehow, this continued for a few minutes. We'd make jokes that weren't so funny, and we'd both laugh. It was the purest form of hysteria as far as I could tell, and it was a whole lot better than any alternatives I could think of.

When she'd calmed down, she breathed deeply against my neck and ear. "God, why can't the hotel scent go away? We should trade pillows. I want to smell you when I fall asleep."

"Why do you need a pillow when I'm right here?" I suggested, quietly so my mom couldn't hear. I didn't know how much she could hear through the door, but it was uncharacteristically silent in there. There wasn't even the occasional tink of knitting needles.

As if it was possible, she moved closer to me, pressing herself against me so that our embrace was almost suffocating, but that was the key word. Almost. If someone were to try to get closer, neither of us would be breathing, yet somehow I still wished I could.

I did the next best thing. I pressed my lips against hers and held her close to me. Closer. As close as I could. We only breathed when we absolutely needed to and that seemed much less often than normal. She tugged at my shirt, and I smiled into her.

I woke sometime in the early morning light. We were slowly getting used to the moroi schedule, but we were on a weird clock for the time being. I wasn't really surprised to be awake.

I rolled over, hoping to get closer to Sydney again. We'd apparently moved away from each other in our sleep. But Sydney wasn't there. Instead, just over the side of the bed, I saw the top of her head, the golden halo of flyaway hairs practically twinkled in the pink-orange light.

"Sydney..." I murmured, trying to get a handle on my motor functions. I managed to prop myself up on my elbow. She was kneeling in front of one of my mom's purses. There was some makeup and some other small purse-y things strewn around her, and she was looking up at me like a child caught doing something bad. Her hand, holding something I couldn't see in the dark, was frozen half in and half out of the unzipped mouth. "Sydney, what are you doing?"

I was still groggy and trying to make sense of what was happening. She finished putting the thing into the bag and said, "Sorry. Did I wake you up? I didn't know I was being loud. I'll go in the other room."

With that, she picked up the purse and a few things from around the room and left.

Too groggy to process what had happened, I laid back on the bed and pulled the quilt up to my chin. Had she had a nightmare? What was she doing with my mom's bag? I had this sense that I was missing something... that this meant something bad, but I was too tired to remember why.

I woke up at a more normal time, with the digital clock saying it was late moroi morning.

And the nights events came back to me in a rush.

I sat up and turned to where she usually was, but she wasn't there. When I got up, she wasn't in the kitchen or the bathroom. She wasn't on the couch, and her room key was on the counter. She hadn't even bothered to take it with her... like she wasn't coming back.

Sydney was gone, and I hadn't even tried to stop her.

"No!" I slammed the fleshy part of my fist into the marble counter, not caring how badly it hurt. "No! How could I be so stupid?"

"Adrian?" Mom's voice was thick with sleep. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

I leaned against the door and sank down to a crouch, my hands locked in my hair. "Sydney left."

She sat up, slowly. "What do you mean?"

"She left, Mom! She went to go save- She went to go help someone, and I didn't stop her. She's putting herself in danger!"

She ran a hand through her tussled hair. I couldn't see her expression. The light from the window had turned her face to a silhouette. "I may not know her well, but she doesn't seem like someone who could be easily stopped. Don't blame yourself."

But I did. How could I not? I had watched her walk out... I was just too... too groggy, and too stupid, to catch on.

I had to find her. I wasn't going to lose her again. I couldn't lose her again.

Before I do review corner, I just want to thank everyone who's been favoriting, following, and reviewing this story! The more people are following, the more pressure I have on me to write a new chapter, which believe it or not, is a good thing!

Review Corner:

Rainy: Thanks for the feedback. Aw, I guess I get it. She is keeping things from him, though she has motives. Adrian cooking was probably the most laughable part I've written in this story so far! I hope I'll get to fit some more humor in soon, but it's gonna start getting intense in about... two chapters I think, so I don't really know if there will be many full scenes of it like that. Rose being a lawyer made me actually laugh! She'd end up having to represent herself after she lost it on a judge. (My client IS NOT GUILTY!) At least Lissa's got Rose and Dimitri now, by Adrian's doing. And Adrian too of course, though with Sydney gone he'll hardly be much help...

Sagelover: I'm glad you think so! I'm trying, but I think I have to reread some passages so I can get the internal monologues a little more like them. And you got some answers to that here...

Guest: I knew another guest would show up in the reviews at some point. Thanks for the review! I'm updating as fast as I can with school and all. If you review again, I'd really appreciate if you put a name of some kind so I can properly give tribute to you in the review corner, and so we don't have multiple guest's. Thanks!

Jpitt: Oh don't worry, he's not taking it that well. He just thought he'd be able to stop her... Oh, Adrian... When will he learn?

Issyjane249: Aw, you're sweet! Thanks! I haven't seen that many 'After Silver Shadows' fics up yet actually, but I know that there are a lot of good writers in the Bloodlines fandom. I haven't checked for those in a while... and with that reminder, I'm off to read fanfics!