On Her Own

Chapter 10

A few hours later Victor was just getting into bed. It was nearing 2 am. He looked across the room to see Richard checking something on his phone, with Rachel curled up next to him, her head resting on his arm. "Hey, Dick?" Victor whispered across the quiet room.

Richard looked over at his friends bed to see him laying on his side, propping his head up with his head. "Whats up?"

"Rachel…is she like germaphobic or something? She freaked out earlier when I reached for her hand." Victor tilted his head to the side, waiting for his answer.

"No, nothing like that." Richard whispered back. Rachel rolled over, and buried her nose into his side, pulling at his shirt. "She's just been a little on edge lately." Richard finished, placing a hand over the one that had tangled itself in his shirt.

"What happened?" Victor asked as Rachel tensed against Richard who just shook his head.

"You don't have any morning classes tomorrow Vic?" Richard asked as he rolled onto his side so he could better wrap his arms around Rachel.

"No. I don't have any classes." Richard nodded to himself, Rachel relaxing against him once again.

"Could you just keep an eye on her for me? I have one class tomorrow-"

Victor interrupted him. "Dick, it's fine. I can watch her." Victor heard his friend sigh in relief.

"Thanks, I'm just worried about her. And she's been kind of out of it lately and-" And he was worried about Roy showing up at the door when he wasn't around.

"Dick," Victor hissed at him. "I already said it's fine. Besides, it's easy to see why you fell for her. I can understand that you don't want her going and getting herself into trouble. I'm going to take a stab in the dark and guess she has a bad habit of finding trouble?" Richard frowned in the dark. He knew that if something happened while he wasn't around Victor would have Rachels back.

"Something like that…Thanks Vic, I owe you one." He heard his roommate chuckle softly as he placed a soft kiss on Rachels temple and let himself drift off to sleep.

Friday morning Rachel woke to the tapping of a keyboard. Sitting up in bed, she looked around for Richard.

"Morning Sleeping Beauty." She noticed Victor working on his laptop over at his desk again.

"Oh, hey Victor. Did Richard already leave for class?" She wondered what time it was, and how Richard had managed to get out of his room without waking her.

"Yeah, he left like an hour ago and didn't want to wake you." She nodded, her brain working over time. His class was two and a half hours, if she was lucky she be able to get an hour in the gym.

Sliding off the bed, she pulled on some clean clothes and gathered her stuff together.

"Where are you going?" She looked over her shoulder at him.

"Whats it matter?" She asked, acting like she didn't care.

He shrugged. "Dick asked me to keep an eye on you, said he was worried but he didn't say why. Would you be willing to tell me what you did that got him worried in the first place?"

She wondered if this was his way of telling her that he was more worried than he let on the other night when she was at the gym. Or was there something else he was worried about that she wasn't aware of. "I'm gonna go shower and chill in my room with my homework." She said after a short silence. Lying was a lot easier when it wasn't Richard.

Victor nodded not seeing anything wrong with that. "Alright, enjoy your shower." He put two fingers to his forehead in a small salute.

Once the door was shut behind her, Rachel jogged down the stairs to her room. Toni wasn't there, and she was kind of grateful for that. She didn't feel like talking.

Changing into a leotard, she pulled on some sweatpants over her leo, along with a sweatshirt after she had wrapped her wrists. Glancing out the window, she noticed it was snowing. Groaning she threw on Richards jean jacket as well and left her room.

Jogging slowly, she made her way across campus.

Richards phone vibrated in his pocket during class. Sliding it out, he glanced at the screen. It was from Victor. Just saw your girl jog out of the building, she was going towards the south end of campus. You asked me to keep an eye out, so I'm following her.

Richard wondered where she could be going. I'm on way, where are you? Sending that text he packed up his stuff and told his professor that something came up and he had to leave.

Rachel stood on the balls of her feet before falling into a run. Doing a roundoff back handspring, she threw herself into an arabian. Sticking the landing perfectly. Her blood was roaring in her ears. Taking two steps back, she began another pass. Roundoff, back tuck, layout, layout with a added half twist. Pivoting, she faced the empty floor. Lunging into a handstand she walked the length of the floor on her hands, pivoted and kicked down from her hands, only to run and punch into a full layout, one and a half. Finishing that pass, she threw her hands in the air, saluting imaginary judges. Panting slightly.

When she pivoted, she noticed someone leaning against the wall by her stuff. "W-what are you doing here?" She never would have expected him to show up here.

"Is this where you keep disappearing to?"

The familiar burning in her muscles suddenly felt less good, as he moved closer. "It helps. When I'm flying…I can't afford to worry or- or think about Roy…"

She looked at the mats and noticed he had taken his shoes off, he was walking towards her. "How much of that did you actually see?"

He shrugged. Arms folded across his chest, his eyes boring down on her. "Enough to be impressed, and wonder why I'm only just now seeing this side of you. I thought you preferred to keep your feet on the ground?" She could hear a bit of amusement in his voice and decided he couldn't be too mad.

"I tried to put this part of my life behind me. But lately, I've needed a distraction…a release." She still wasn't looking at him and tensed when he placed one hand on her waist while the other went under her chin, lifting it.

"Well my little gymnast, you are quite amazing." His eyes were big and bright as he took in the jeweled purple and blue swirls, sleeveless leotard she had on.

"Richard? Could I show you something?" She asked, excitement leaking into her voice, he knew he'd never be able to say, 'no' to her when she was like this. "Of course."

Standing on her tip toes she kissed him on the cheek before jogging over to the corner. "Ready?" She was smiling, excited. Her pulse started racing at the idea of someone watching her.

Richard nodded.

Running she did a roundoff followed by two back handsprings and threw herself into a back whip, with a one and a half twist, stumbling slightly on the landing as she rolled her ankle. She just prayed he hadn't noticed.

She kind of smiled as he came up to her, picking her up with his hands on her hips and swinging her around in a circle. "That was amazing!"

His grin was contagious, and before long she was grinning too. So what if she fumbled the landing a bit, she could work on it.

"That's the first whip I've done since ninth grade…" She was still trying to catch her breath. She'd never been able to do a one and a half twist after a whip before.

He lowered her so her feet were on the floor before pulling her tight against him in a hard passionate kiss. She pushed against his shoulders, stepping back and falling to the ground when her rolled ankle decided it didn't want to take her weight.

Wide eyed, she looked up at him. She saw Roy, grinning. Advancing, telling her how much she wanted it. He grabbed her shoulder and she jerked away from his touch, falling to lay on her back. Still she tried to push herself farther away from him.

Blinking, she saw black hair and blue eyes, not orange and brown.

Richard was kneeling next to her. His hand cupped her cheek, giving her a small smile. He didn't want to scare her, he needed her to know that. "You're hurt." He saw her ankle give out.

"I rolled it. It'll be fine." His smile got a little bigger.

"Now what kind of boyfriend would I be if I let you walk all the way back to the dorm with a hurt ankle?"

She shrugged and looked at the mat below her. "I'll be fine. I promise. I use to roll my ankle all the time."

"Is this okay?" He asked as his thumb stroked her cheek. She barley nodded.

His smile grew some more and he laid down on his side next to her. She rolled onto her side so her could face him. "Is it still snowing?"

Richard nodded, taking her hand in his. "Yeah, there's a couple of inches out there already."

Rachel sat up. "We should probably get back before it gets much deeper."

They both got to their feet and walked over to where Rachels stuff was. Pulling on their shoes and coats, they both walked out of the gym and into the swirling snow.

By the time they got back to Richards room the both of them were frozen and soaked to the bone. "I'm going to take a shower to warm up, why don't you go take one too?"

She nodded, collecting some clothes from his closet and made her way to the showers. He watched her go before he did the same.

After she had showered and was dressed, she went back into his room and spread out on his bed.

"The school sent out a message, everyone has to be in the dorms by nine, because of the storm." Victor commented, he was sitting on his bed leaning against the wall. They could hear the wind howling outside.

She nodded as the door opened and Richard walked in. She spread her legs wide and laid her arms out to the side, making sure she took up the whole bed.

"And here I thought only girls took forever in the bathroom." Victor joked as Richard threw his balled up towel at his friend.

"Oh haha, if you were as cold as I was you would have taken just as long." Richard retorted, walking closer to the bed. He put his hands on his hips when he realized his girlfriend was taking up the entire of the small mattress. "Are you planning on making room for me?"

She giggled softly and shook her head.

He smirked. "Alright then, I guess I'll just have to squish you."

Rachels eyes widened and she shifted so she was flat against the wall as he moved to lay on top of her.

Victor watched as Richard froze mid movement, before sitting on the edge. He whispered something that Victor couldn't hear and extended a hand out to her. He noticed that Rachel was nervous as she laid her hand in his. Bringing her hand up, he kissed the back of it and whispered to her again. She slowly peeled herself away from the wall and laid down in Richards arms. He knew something must have happened to her, and neither of them liked to talk about it.

A few hours passed and they had all long since fallen asleep. Victors phone rang, waking him up. Not two minutes later he was out of his bed and next to his roommates. "Dick, Dick. Wake up." He shook his friends shoulder gently.

"Ugh, what? Whats up?" He spoke softly, but didn't move. Rachel was curled up against him with her head resting on his chest, a hand sprawled over his heart. Under the blankets one of her legs was lying between his.

"I just got a call from a buddy of mine. The storm knocked out the power. Some of the staff is going around doing a bed check." Victor could practically see the wheels in his head turning, figuring out why it was a problem.

Richard groaned softly and turned on his side, trying to shift Rachel off of him. She moaned and tried to rest her head on his arm. Whimpering quietly, she curled into a ball.

Richard sat up and ran a hand through his hair, gazing at his sleeping girlfriend. Her hair was still damp from her shower earlier, sleeping in what he knew to be nothing more than one of his shirts and a pair of her booty shorts, hiding under the shirt. He leaned over to brush some hair out of her face, even in her sleep she still leaned into his touch.

He couldn't believe they were doing a bed check, they were in college for crying out loud. "Alright, I need to get her out of here. The R.A.'s don't care what we do but I bet the staff won't be too happy to find her in here." He knew he needed to get Rachel back to her room.

Victor nodded, and turned to pull an extra blanket out of a drawer from under his bed. "There's no electricity, so we get no heat. It won't be long before the halls start getting cold."