He was there. Waiting for her. She'd given up expecting to see him, yet there he was.
"Thane…" Irikah stumbled forwards, and he got to his feet.
"Irikah, are you well?"
"I am," she said, fumbling in her bag for the keys and dropping them to the ground.
Thane sprang to help, and their fingers brushed as she struggled to close her frozen fingers over them.
"Your skin is like ice. Let's get you inside," Thane said. He took the keys from her unresisting fingers. She allowed him to open the door, and followed him into the still darkness of her apartment. Her sluggish mind sought the words she'd given up on.
She'd imagined this moment over and over, to the point where she could almost call it a memory. But now Thane was here her gestures seemed foolish, like the dreams of a child. Irikah knew she would not get another chance.
Thane switched the lamp on, navigating the messy room with ease. Irikah could only watch.
"We need to get you warm," he murmured as he brushed past her and headed into the bedroom.
The whole place was a terrible mess. There was no surface to be seen. Her desk was overflowing with bits of paper, half folded flowers and spent pens. She had nowhere to sit. Her bedroom was equally bad. He was in her bedroom.
"Thane, wait," Irikah called, and she tripped over a precariously placed basket, hitting her shins hard against the table in the centre of the room.
The pain woke her up. "Arashu be damned," Irikah cursed, reeling backwards. Blood welled between the scales on her legs.
Thane darted back in with a blanket in his arms. He folded it over her shoulders, and dropped to look at her legs. "This needs tending to. Do you have a med-kit?"
"In the kitchen, but I want to talk to you first. Thane!"
He ignored her, and vanished into the kitchen. "I will listen, when you are tended to," he called.
There was the familiar sound of the kettle being filled, and Irikah gave an exasperated groan. This wasn't working out as she would have liked.
"You need tea," Thane told her as he emerged, holding the med-kit. There was a hint of admonishment in his voice. "Now sit still."
Irikah glanced at the chair behind her. It was heaving with clothes, most of them dirty. She swept them off, and sat down heavily, cocooned in the folds of her blanket.
Thane sat cross-legged before her, examining her wounds carefully before applying medi-gel bandages with deft fingers. "You should escape permanent scarring," he said, finishing up and moving to stand.
"No," Irikah said. She leant forward, and caught the edge of his coat firmly. "You're not going anywhere. Sit down."
Thane looked at the kitchen door.
"The tea can wait. Now, sit," Irikah commanded, summoning her courage.
He did so, folding down onto the cluttered rug without a word.
Irikah gathered the blanket closer and shuffled to the edge of the chair. "The last time you were here, I said some things to you. I was unkind, and I am sorry for that. I should not have judged you as I did. It was not my place."
Thane looked up at her, and Irikah wished they could trade places. It should be her at his feet.
"I want to offer you my forgiveness. And I would like to ask for yours."
"You forgive me?" Thane said, and Irikah dropped to her knees in front of him.
"Please, I am sorry for what I said. What Amonkira wills is not to be thrown away lightly. Please, I must have your forgiveness."
Thane looked down at his hands. "I have thought about your words more than I care to admit. I could not rest, knowing what you thought of me, and I had to ask myself why. I do not regret my life, or my actions. What I am is what I have been made to be."
He raised his gaze to hers, and Irikah stilled.
"My concern is that, by following Amonkira's bidding, I have turned away from any other path open to me. I fear, perhaps it is not Amonkira who calls me now, but Arashu."
"I don't understand," Irikah said quietly.
"If you sit back down I shall explain," Thane said, and Irikah got slowly back into the chair.
"I spoke to the hanar who employed me. I explained my feelings, and they made it clear that if I wished to leave their service I was free to do so. It has been my whole life. I have known nothing else," Thane said, shifting uncomfortably. He clasped his hands together, then separated them and got to his feet to pace the room.
"Irikah." Thane stopped, and turned back to face her. "If you still wish, I could stop. But I cannot do this alone."
He was offering her something, not something paid for with blood, but the one thing she could accept.
"You wouldn't be alone," Irikah said. It was done. They looked at each other. At the beginning of something new, and the end of the life they had known.
The kettle gave a piercing shriek, and Thane hesitated.
"Go," Irikah smiled. She drew her legs up into the cover, and laid her head back amidst the warm folds. She felt sleepy from the warmth, and a strange feeling of contentment that crept through her veins as she listened to him in her kitchen.
The soft chink of cups being laid upon the tray. The hiss of water.
Thane carried the tray through and put it down carefully on the floor where he had cleared a space. "How are you feeling? You look warmer."
"Better, thank you."
She watched him stir the tea, and pour it into the waiting cups. He'd chosen her favourite set, blood red with dark flowers embellished in repeating patterns. Thane's skin was green against the dark, his fingers a cradle as he lifted the cup to her and she accepted it.
Irikah sipped the tea, then rested the cup on her lap. "I went to the beach," she said dreamily. "I should have known better but…I wanted to see the sea."
"You are hardly dressed for the beach."
"No. I dressed to meet someone." She conjured Daro's image in her memory. "But I met you. I'd given up on ever seeing you again. What brought you back?"
Thane rubbed his thumb over the cup and kept his eyes downcast. "I met Hehran whilst I was travelling. He said you had asked for me."
"Oh." She'd hoped it was the flower that sat on the table, the one he'd arrived with.
"I did not intend to return. You made your wishes clear, and I had no reason to believe they had changed." Thane smiled, and his neck skin flushed red. "I ignored his words at first. They made me hope for something I couldn't have. Foolish as it may seem, I came back because I missed you. I came back because he gave me hope that you might miss me too."
When he raised his eyes to hers they were filled with such longing that Irikah could not look away.
"I missed you." The haze of warmth had gone. She was painfully aware of the throb in her legs, the man sitting within reaching distance, and the sharp pull of desire. He wasn't hers yet. "What happens now?"
"I will go back to my masters and inform them of my decision. There will be things in motion that I must take care of, but once those are dealt with I shall return as a free man."
Irikah nodded. "How long will that take?"
"I do not know. There is much to consider. I suppose I will need some other method of funding my lifestyle." He said it with a wry smile, and Irikah smiled back.
"You'll have to work like the rest of us. Out in the morning, and back at night. Schedules. Routine." It seemed strange to think of him joining the daily migration to work and back again. That he would appear at all was still a novelty.
"Ah. Back at night. No interruptions. I can see the appeal," Thane said.
Irikah tried to fight back a yawn and failed.
"I have outstayed my welcome." Thane returned his cup to the tray and got to his feet. "It is time I left. There is still much to be done, and you have work in the morning. Schedules. Routine."
Irikah moved to get up, but Thane crossed to her side and crouched down. "Stay there, you need to keep warm. I don't know when I will return, but I will be in touch."
"You won't disappear again?"
He leant close, and pressed his lips to her cheek barely inches away from the delicate skin of her neck. "You have given me a reason to return. Goodnight, Irikah."
"Goodnight," she murmured, pulling the blanket tight around herself.
She watched him leave, heard the door click shut behind him, and in the silence left she found herself listening. Listening for his return, and all that it would bring.
