She wakes up slowly, her mind trying to resist the return to consciousness. She doesn't want to open her eyes for fear that she's still in some unknown dream where she's lying on a cloud rather than the hard floor of the cell.
But then she realizes there's too much light coming through her closed eyelids. The air is too fresh, and there shouldn't be a cool breeze blowing over her. She opens her eyes and sits up, and when she sees her moss bed and Austin a little ways away growing fruit trees, the events of the night before are brought to the front of her mind.
The escape. The woods they're in. The question she asked Austin. The embarrassment.
It's even worse now that she's rested and thinking clearly. She asked to kiss him. She let her emotions influence her actions. She let a pretty face and strong arms and twinkly eyes and a warm smile and magical powers influence her emotions. What kind of Scientist is she?
She shakes her head quickly to try to escape her thoughts and stands up, busying herself with pretending to be figuring out where they are. It doesn't work.
"Hey, you're up!" she hears Austin call from his field of food. "You hungry?"
She doesn't look at him or say anything. She walks over to where he is and focuses her attention on all the plants instead of him.
"I've got every kind of fruit you can think of, some vegetables, uh, some mint leaves, if you're into that, I dunno. I can make a waterfall if you're thirsty. I also grew a maple tree for syrup. Even though there's nothing to put it on, it's a breakfast feast staple, you know?"
She nods. "Mmhm."
She feels his eyes on her, but she can't figure out what she's supposed to do. Heat rises to her cheeks and she wishes she could curl up in a hole and hide. She mentally slaps herself for all the self-conscious criticism running through her mind. No wonder Scientists push back their emotions. She can't handle this.
"So…are you gonna eat something? I mean, not to rush you, but we lost a lot of time and who knows whether Dez – "
"Right. Yes," she interrupts. She turns her back on him and cringes at her sudden awkwardness, but she covers it by pretending to stretch. Then she walks up to the first tree she sees and picks an orange off of it.
"What, no criticism about how the tree roots will somehow screw with the ground in the city and we'll be figured out?"
She shakes her head, peeling the orange and staring at it intently.
"Okay, what's up?" he asks her.
"Nothing's up," she replies.
"Then why aren't you talking my ear off like you normally do?"
"Nothing to say."
"You always have something to say."
"That's not true."
"Ally," he says with a slight tone of exasperation, grabbing her shoulders, "what's wrong?"
She freezes at the contact, her heart pounding. Hydrogen Helium Lithium Beryllium Boron. "Nothing is wrong."
He sighs and drops his arms, apparently giving up. "Fine. Don't tell me." He starts walking away.
Turn around. I would've cracked. She starts eating the orange in her hands and risks glancing up at him. His head is down as he walks towards a different fruit tree. Turn around, you idiot.
After filling up on everything Austin grew and then packing the leftovers into bags made from leaves, the two of them set off again into the woods.
"Before you woke up I went exploring. The city is that way." He points to their right. "So if we keep going like this, we'll eventually run into wherever we're going, right?"
She nods. "We'll have to find a way to check every so often to make sure we're staying on the outskirts of the city and not accidentally walking past it."
"Let's cross that bridge when we get to it," he says. "So are you gonna tell me what's wrong now?"
"I told you, nothing's wrong." Just tell him.
"And I know you're lying. No wonder you Scientists are always supposed to tell the truth. You guys suck at lying."
Ally sighs. "I just…don't wanna talk about it."
He's silent for a while. He shoves his hands in his pockets, looking at the ground. "I didn't mean to embarrass you," he mutters hesitantly. She looks over at him, pressing her lips together in a tight line and trying to ignore the heat rising to her cheeks. He glances at her and then quickly looks away. "I know I said I'd forget about it, but…clearly you can't."
Tiny flowers start sprouting up around his feet each time he takes a step. If he notices, he doesn't seem to care. "I don't want you beating yourself up over it or being embarrassed and awkward around me for the rest of our lives. I know it was the adrenaline and hunger and lack of sleep. I honestly didn't think any more of it. So you shouldn't either."
She swallows, her heart pounding. She tries to ignore the feelings beating against the walls she built around them in her mind. They can't get out again. She'll never be able to put them back if they do.
She manages a small nod, and that seems to be the end of it. They continue walking in silence, and although she's internally panicking because of her growing feelings for him, she does feel more relaxed around him now that they've sorted out the events of last night.
After a few hours, they're forced to stop in a thick patch of trees at the edge of the woods. In front of them is a fairly large clearing, perfectly in view of anyone who happens to be near the city limits. They have to wait for nightfall to continue.
"I'd be much more useful if I could, like, turn us invisible or something," Austin notes as he sits against a tree and pulls up some of the grass at his side.
"But you can't. So stop complaining." She picks up a pebble next to where she's sitting and tosses it at him.
Austin lifts a hand and the pebble stops in midair for a split second before dropping to the ground. "I'm just worried."
"I know."
"We could always just test our luck and go for it. It's probably been almost two weeks. I don't think Dez has much time left before they – "
"It's possible that they won't even do anything except maybe imprison him. Then I can just go in and explain that my disappearance wasn't his fault, they'll believe me, and no one even needs to find out about you."
"Okay, Scientist. It's possible. But according to your genius calculations, how probable is it?" he asks her, raising an eyebrow.
She exhales. "Unlikely. But Austin, we keep having this exact same conversation over and over again. It isn't changing anything."
"You know what else isn't changing anything? Sitting around and doing nothing just because there's a slight chance someone will be in the middle of nowhere and see us in the thirty seconds it would take to run across that clearing."
"If we get caught – "
"Which we wouldn't."
Ally closes her eyes and counts to ten. "I find that I would quite like to yell at you right now," she tells him.
"What's stopping you?" She opens her eyes. Smoke is curling off his hair. "I'm serious," he says. "Yell at me. Go for it. Act like a real human being for once and maybe you can also prove my point that we won't get caught in the process."
She glares at him. "I don't like it when you say I'm not human. Especially when you're the one with inhuman abilities."
He stands up. "And I don't like it when you act like you don't know what it's like to have regular emotions."
She stands up too, clenching her fists at her sides. "Well, I'm sorry my personality and the norm in the world I grew up in offend you, but the fact of the matter is that you're hypocritically insulting me while I'm simply acting the way regular Scientists do. And Scientists, in case you've forgotten, are supposed to be the only people still alive."
Austin rolls his eyes. "That isn't what pisses me off. What pisses me off is that I know you feel things and I know you know exactly what you're feeling, but you suppress all your emotions and hide behind your Scientist conditioning because you're scared."
"I've told you, emotions get in the way of scientific study and reasoning."
"What are you studying?! Nothing! You have no reason to block your humanity out here!"
"Why do you care?" she asks him.
"Because I feel like I'm talking to a freaking robot!"
Ally swallows. "Stop yelling. Someone will hear – "
"No! I'm gonna keep yelling because I'm frustrated!" Sparks fly off his hair. "AHHHHHH!"
"This is why Scientists aren't supposed to allow our emotions to influence us," she says. "You're being irrational and irresponsible."
Austin groans in annoyance. "I can't do this anymore. I'm gonna go save my friend. With or without you."
He turns on his heel and walks out of the safety of the densely packed trees and into the open field ahead. When he gets about halfway across, she gives in and races after him.
so i've been super busy w college apps and friends and other things and i'm v sorry the next chapter will be better probably