The shadows of the darkness during the night covered the wilderness of Parker's hunting ground like the warm blanket covers of a bed; it had been almost three hours since James killed Steve and Emily had not heard a peep out of him since then or even so much as an eye glance, he just remained silent as he lead her through the forest to this hunter's cabin he mentioned earlier, refusing to look back at Emily as if he was doing it out of shame for not being at his best right now.
Along the way the Belladonna drug James was forcedly given, by good old Caleb, before was starting to act up some more, again he kept seeing the apparition hallucination of his Grandfather and old friend Wilson asking him over and over the same question "Where is it that you think you're going James?"
The question, it was the one question he had not an answer to, he himself did not even have the slightest idea of what he was doing. Everything in the world that once made since to him was gone, replaced with insanity and madness as he was still trying to come to terms with the discovery of his distant relatives. There was also the situation from earlier where he was forced to kill Steve to save Emily, a man that was the closest things he has had to a friend in a long time. James could still feel his stomach turning as he remembered it all in a matter of seconds.
Finally, after having endured the silence between the two of them till she could not stand it anymore, Emily decides to see if she could at the very least get him to talk to her "Hey James, are you alright? You haven't said a word since after what happened with Steve." James then replies "I'm fine Raven; I just want to get to the cabin and get these wounds taken care of."
James did not even look back at Emily as he said those words to her, his face was emotional, as if he was upset about something, but he was trying to put on a tough guy face to hide the pain, or at the very least trying to maintain a emotional and calm look on his face. He was not trying to fool Emily though; he was trying to fool himself and to hide from what he had done, to forget the pain and what caused it for him.
The guilt of killing Steve was the thing that ate at him the most, it was enough to drive him mad like a mental asylum patient, he felt responsible for some reason. He had no reason to, even he knew that but it ate at him all the same. It was a choice, everything eventually comes down to a choice, and his was who should live, Steve or Emily, he chose to save Emily like he would if it had been anyone else that he cared about, he had this done to him once before, all he could do was keep walking onward and deal with it later when there was no trouble for them rather than right now.
"James, will you at least slow down, and talk to me? You really have me worried after what happened back there." Emily asks and says, making her worries and concerns for him to be heard and understood by him. James stopped for a second and looks back at Emily, not looking her directly in the eyes as he speaks "What do you want me to say Emily? I just killed my friend; a friend that I'm beginning to think wasn't that much of a friend after all. It's dark, and to be honest Emily I just want to get to the Cabin, lock it up and then get some sleep. Cause after what I've seen and learned today, I could really use some of it. Both of us could."
Emily could see he was trying to maintain control of his emotions, but he was still having trouble controlling his tears as they came down when he talked about how he killed Steve and his doubts as to whether they were actually real friends. Everything that has happened to him today had nearly broken him and she could not bear to see it any more.
"All right James, alright. Let's head over to this cabin of yours." Emily says, not wanting to push him anymore than she already had. James then says with a shrug of his head "Then come on Raven, let's keep on going."
James continued to lead Emily for a couple of more minutes that almost reached into half of the current hour before they finally made it to the cabin he had been talking about. It was old and sturdy, like it had been built to withstand anything, like it was made by someone preparing for the end of days. The windows were boarded up, and as far as she could see there was only one door to enter from, the front door.
James feels around the door frame and finds the key still where he left it from his last hunting trip. Emily found this to be a carless thing for someone like him to do, having spent most of his life doing things with minimal chance of blowing up in his face and she asks "You leave the key out in the open like that?" to which he responds "Well aside for me, Deeks, and Steve along with a few of the other hunters in Parker, no one else knows this place even exists, let alone how to find this place."
He slides the key into the lock and turns it clockwise, and then the tumblers to the door could be heard moving as it unlocked and it opened a couple of seconds later. James then says "There should be a phone inside we can use. You get that to call your friends, I'm going to find the medicine."
Emily begins to look through the house as James places the Winchester rifle on the ground before locking the door back shut and starts to search for the medical supplies in the cabin to properly care for his wounds. There was only one phone to be found in the cabin though; it was connected to the wall. Emily typed in Garcia's number and waited after a few rings to finally hear from her, but it was all static, so she tried Hotchner's number, but it to was static, and then she made one more attempt with J.J.'s number and like the other's it was nothing but static.
James was back in the front room sitting on the couch, having already taking off his jacket and says sarcastically as he sees Emily walk back into the room with an irritated look on her face "So I take it the phone wasn't working?"
"What gave it away? The fact that I'm not talking into it? Or was it that I'm having this conversation with you?" Emily replies back in her own sarcasm to which he replies "No need to be a smart ass."
Emily watched as James places a small bag with a medical symbol on it and then he asks "How many of your bullets do you have left?" She then remembers that she was never put in the situation during the chase that she needed to use her gun to defend herself and says "Same as before, I never had to use my gun so I never had to waste any of my bullets."
"Good, very good." James says as he starts to go through the bag and he says "Hey in that room you were just in, there should a small little box next to a picture of me and a friend. Can you bring it to me please?"
"Why can't you do it?" Emily asks, finding laziness to be something James was also not accustom to in his routine of life, and not really wanting to be the butler in the room until he said "Well if you haven't noticed I'm going to be re-stitching my wounds and there are some things in the box I can use. Besides, you're already up."
Emily, with an irritated sigh and roll of her eyes, searches in the room and see a photo with his name and the name Oliver on it, she gets the box James mentioned and brings it to him. Setting it down before hearing him say "Thanks Emily." It was probably the nicest thing he had said to her since they escaped from the horrid Cullen family.
James opens the bag and pulls out raps and more stitches along with some alcohol to clean the wound. He then opens the box reveal a silver and black Sphinx AT-2000 along with some wraps and pain killers. James pulls out the Swiss version of the CZ-75 and places it to the side as he pulls out the wraps. Emily immediately noticed the gun and asks "Why do you have another pistol?"
James looks up at her for a second, somewhat surprised that she would not have expected him to have one, and after a few more seconds of silence says "It's my back up weapon?" Emily then asked in confusion "Your back up weapon?" then James clarifies "Yeah, you know the gun you switch to when your first weapon runs out."
Emily smirks a little, finally seeing some of the old James in his preparations for and expectation the worst, and then she asks "So do you have any kind of plan for getting out of here?" James shrugged his head then says "Yeah, I'm going to wait till morning then when the suns up, I'll start the truck up and we get the hell out of Dodge?"
"Wait you have a truck here?" Emily asks, seeing a simple way to leave and asks another question "Why don't we just get in the truck and drive back to Parker and you can have the doctor's take a look at your wounds when we get there." James listened to her plan thoroughly before thinking on how to explain why he disagreed with her plan and says "Sorry can't do it. There is only one road around here, a dirt road, and if I can't see far ahead I could crash into a tree or run off into a ditch. And plus with those cannibal freaks out there, I'd rather not take that chance."
Emily still liked her plan, but she could see James reasoning for wanting to stay till morning. She watches as James begins to remove his shirt, showing the poorly sewn wounds, Emily was still horrified to see them all. She then watches as James removes the stitches and gets ready with the alcohol to clean his wound.
"You need some help with that?" Emily asks, wishing to help and seeing his hesitation to place a small towel soaked with alcohol on his skin where he knew it was going to sting and burn like Hell itself.
"Do you know how to use this stuff right?" James asks, not wanting any screw ups. Then Emily says as she takes the town from his hand "I saw you stitch yourself up earlier and I've seen enough medics doing it."
James braced for the pain as he watched the towel coming closer and closer to the fist wound to be cleaned and then bites down on his lips from the pain of alcohol that began to sting from the inside of his wound as it was being cleaned. Emily takes hold of one of James hands, willing to allow him to squeeze onto it as a way of coping with the pain, but the thing was, from the moment he started holding onto her hand for the duration of his wound being thoroughly cleaned, James was remained peaceful and calm like a Buddhist Monk, as if the pain no longer affected him. Even as she started to work on the other wounds James remained calm, holding onto her hand.
As Emily was cleaning the wounds she noticed that near the wounds she could see smaller scars that had healed already, as if the abdomen wound was more like a reopened wound, and were nothing more than blemishes on his skin, the same was for one on his left shoulder. After the alcohol was used on all the wounds James took the bandages and wipes the blood off and properly bandages up the scars.
"Thanks." James says to Emily, finally looking her in the eyes. Emily to another notice to the small scar near the lower left abdomen scar and she asks as she her a finger on the spot "James what happened to you there?" James looks down at the scar and then says "Oh, just something that happened while I was in Romania."
"What were you doing in Romania?" Emily asks, curious as to what could have brought him there, his response and answer had her baffled and unsure if he was serious "Well what can I say, I always wanted to see a coast of the black sea, didn't count on grandma having some enemy's back in the old country who didn't like me that much."
"Are you serious Greaves?" Emily asks, wanting to make sure he was not just doing one of his really too serious jokes, but he obliterated any doubt she had about his explanation after he says "Yeah, you got to hand it to that Comescu family; they really know how to hold a grudge."
"You're not joking are you?" Emily asks and then James says "Oh come on Raven, I know I've told my fair share of really horrible jokes when we were together years ago but you would really think I could make something like that up?" James said, causing Emily to smirk before says "James, you can have the creativity of an author of a hundred successful books and at the same time the deviousness of a Master criminal."
"Thank for that Emily, I think." James replies to her somewhat teasing complement of the character of how he did things. It felt nice to be doing this with her again, the joking around with each other, he missed it. Emily herself enjoyed it as well, even though the situation they were in was not ideal, it still felt great all the same. Besides, it was better being in constant fear of one of the Cullen Family members finding them.
James begins to sit himself up, preparing to stand before saying something about getting a drink and something to eat, but Emily begins to protest saying "No, James, you just need to sit down here and rest for a while, maybe get some sleep." James took a moment of pause to boggle the consideration on her words and whether he agreed with her and them at first, and then decides to go against them, mostly to annoy her saying "But I really want to eat and drink."
Then as he starts to try and stand up again, mostly out of spite and to playfully annoy her. Emily stood up first, having the energy to where she could afford to be quicker than him right now, beginning to push him back down onto the couch; James tried to push back, but in the struggle to see who was more determined or stubborn Emily lost her footing and trips forward on James.
James and Emily both fell back onto the couch, James still feeling the soreness of his wounds. As Emily begins to lift her head, seeing that she was on top of James, at the same time James was lifting his own head. As they both came to view of the other, both could see how close that their faces were to one another. Her face was so close to James. He could practically feel the warmth of her breathing going in and out of her mouth.
James was never the impulsive type, always making a decision if he was completely sure it was what he wanted to do, but before he actually knew or could comprehend what he was doing he felt his head lean forward until the space between their lips were gone, his lips pressing against hers in a kiss. He half-expected her to angrily push him away or slap him across the face, not that he would blame her, but she didn't. Emily herself was surprised at first, not expecting this to happen, but she was not angry or disgusted, she was kind of happy, she kissed him back in return putting both hands on his face as they kissed passionately.
Emily soon felt James hands reaching around her sides as they kissed. She lets him pull of her shirt before resuming kissing as James runs one of his hands up her back and they both start to lean back into the couch before James picks her up in his arms and takes her into one of the bedrooms.
