It was amazing that she didn't regret Krit either time. Syl hated sex, but most of all she hated her heat cycle. That's what had messed her up in the first place, made everything her fault so much that even now Zack couldn't erase it, no matter how much he tried.


"You know, it was me the first time."

"You the first time what?" Zack asked.

"The first time," she repeated. "With him." She stared into her breakfast as Zack gazed at her from across the table. "I can't eat this," she said. "I'll just throw it up."

"What are you talking about?"

"My morning sickness, Zack," she hissed. "Have you forgotten?"

"Eat," he said. She took a fork-full of his regimented 'If you're going to have this baby it's going to be healthy, dammit' meal plan crap. "I meant," Zack continued. "What are you talking about 'it was me the first time'?" Oh.

"Oh." She shrugged. "Never mind, forget I said anything." Then she started crying. She hated being pregnant, hated hormones. Zack waited for her to get a handle on herself. "Dammit," she said.

"Tell me." It was almost an order, though she was gradually easing him off that particular tendency as she was so many others left over from Manticore, getting him to ask her to do things instead of just demanding, getting him to accept it when she said no. It had been three months since she'd convinced him to take her in, and they'd already lived in nine cities. She couldn't even remember where they were right now, or who they were watching out for.

"You wouldn't understand," she said. Zack sighed; he'd been doing that a lot lately, she'd noticed.

"Why not?" he asked; Syl threw her fork down, stood up, paced over to the window.

"Because you're a guy, Zack," she spat without turning around. "Because Manticore didn't do to you what they did to me." Something broke inside of her, something holding back everything she hadn't talked about for months, and she couldn't stop it. "You just don't know what it's like to be twelve years old and have this disgusting forty-year-old man look suddenly like the best thing in the world and you don't know why because no one's ever told you about sex or babies or any of that!" She was sobbing but she didn't care. "You don't know what it's like to throw yourself at him and for him not to stop you and you can hear your voice begging for more but it's not you and inside you're screaming, 'Get off me, get off me, get off me!' And it hurts because you're so little and he's so big and it hurts. It hurts and I can't stop it and I don't know why I'm acting like that, Zack, and it hurts!"

"Okay, Syl," he whispered, suddenly beside her, his arms around her. Pain was shooting through her hand; she looked down and it was bloody and the window was broken. Had she punched through it? She didn't even remember doing that. "Okay," Zack soothed her. "Shshsh, it's okay."

"No, it's not okay!" She twisted away from him, sent her undamaged fist toward his face in a real punch, not a half-assed one, not one Zack would have pulled when they were kids. He blocked it, and she started crying again when he didn't look at all angry. "It's not okay," she said. "It's not! Because it was me the first time! Don't you get it?" She rolled her eyes, clenched her fists. "No, of course you don't, because you're a guy. You just can't know, Zack, so don't even try! Just do me a favour and leave me the hell alone!" She hadn't meant it, was relieved when he knew that.

"Maybe it was you the first time." His voice was soft, calming. "Maybe it was your heat, everything Manticore put inside you that you couldn't control. But that doesn't mean that every other time was your fault, Syl. He knew you didn't want it after that one time. He should have stayed the hell away from you. It wasn't your fault." How did he know that's what she'd been thinking, that she'd been blaming herself all this time? And what the hell was he talking about, 'It's not your fault'? Of course it was her fault, she'd initiated it, led him on. Why shouldn't he have thought she was his for the taking forever after that night? Of course it was her fault, Zack just loved her too much to see it. She shook her head at him, turned away.

"Get away from me," she hissed. So he walked over, pulled her into his arms, and let her cry against him for as long as she needed to.


"Syl?" Krit was calling her; he reached out, touched her back. She jumped. "Sorry."

"It's okay," she said stiffly, playing with the bedspread, not looking at him.

"I love you, Syl," he said suddenly. He reached for her and she rolled over, buried her face in his shoulder, smiled. "Do you love me?" he said in a jokey-whiny voice when she said nothing back.

"Of course," she laughed, glancing up at him. Her smile faded as she caught the expression on his face, goofily happy. She frowned.

"Not like that," she said, pulling back a little, suddenly afraid. "Don't fall in love with me, Krit."

"I don't think I can stop it," he whispered as he leaned his face into her hair, his hands roving everywhere, trying to get her back in the mood. "I've been thinking about you every day since last time you were in Colorado. I haven't been able to get you out of my mind, Syl." She pulled away.

"It's over," she said. "I'm not in heat anymore."

"Who ever said that was a requirement?" he asked, low and throaty. His hands were making her skin warm against her will. She shuddered a little.

"Don't," she said.

"I'm head over heels, Syl." His lips found her shoulder, nipped it, not quite enough to draw blood.

"Head over heels," she repeated, unable to stop her body from responding to him. Even if she wasn't in heat, she was still a woman. Part of her hated how her body warmed toward him, and part of her was frightened by how much she loved it. "That's an old expression," she said, trying to close herself off to him. She grabbed his hands, stopped his caresses, looked into his dark eyes. "Do you even know what it means?" He swept the hair off her cheek, smiled at her. She looked at him, his beautiful face, and was shocked to find herself considering allowing him to continue. She never would have dreamed of doing this before now, not again, not when she couldn't blame it on hormones and pheromones. But when she looked in his eyes and saw the love there, how much he wanted her. She wanted him, too. And it terrified her.

"I didn't until right now," he answered her question, his voice soft and deep with passion. She sighed a little, stopped fighting, let him turn her face so he could kiss her again.

"You're so sappy," she whispered as his hands stroked over her hot skin. Then she forced herself to pull back again, look at him gravely for a moment. "Don't fall in love with me," she said again, but he just smiled. She pressed her hands tensely against his shoulders to make her point. "I'm more complicated than you think I am, Krit."

"I'm sure that's true," he breathed, nuzzling her neck.

"Really," she said. "I'm complicated." Finally catching on to the seriousness of her tone he drew back, frowned.

"Complicated in a good way?"

"No," she said. "In a bad way." He smiled a little.

"Not possible," he teased. He was acting like a stupid teenager. Oh, wait, she realized. We are teenagers.

"Really," she forced out.

"I'm falling for you, Syl," he said again. He put his hands on her shoulders, looked straight into her eyes, scaring her with the sureness in his gaze. "I'm in love with you," he said. "You can't change me." He reached for her again, pulled her close, his fingers threading through her blonde hair as her own hands finally responded, touching, caressing. It was like she was intoxicated but she hadn't had anything to drink. Her head was spinning. Maybe she was crazy, loco as Miguel would say. But whatever it was, she didn't stop it. She didn't say anything more. And though she wouldn't have thought it was possible, sex with Krit was actually better when she wasn't in heat.

Tears rolled down her cheeks afterward, though she told him like the first time that they were happy ones. Only they weren't, not now. She was crying because he hadn't taken her seriously when she'd said, Don't fall in love with me, Krit. But she had been serious, so serious she could have killed someone, only he hadn't seen it. She cried because he was right, she couldn't change him. Couldn't change herself. She cried because she was falling in love with him, too, and she didn't know how to stop it or even if she wanted to try.