Terry Pratchett owns Discworld and all its everything. Minor edits 01/19/12, further edits for continuity 07/10/12.
The faint silver light of the winter sun teased Susan toward consciousness; as her eyes blinked open, the sight that met them (one of Teatime frowning at her from about two feet away) launched her into consciousness at speed.
She reared up into a defensive crouch, yanking the bedclothes over her as she went, and hissing something that sounded vaguely Hublandish, though it was, in fact, "Yaa! HHHHHHHHHWHATiswrongwithyou?"
While she worked to keep her heart on the proper side of her ribs, she saw Teatime's eyes take in her movements and the state of her hair. She hunkered low, ready to run. Her mane shifted wildly in its base state, which was rather like a pyramid (it had taken ages for it to get enough length to weigh it down out of the spherical shape it had taken in her youth). Susan saw the analysis going on behind Teatime's eyes as he observed. This troubled her as much as his watching, like a hungry housecat, for her to wake.
"What?" she demanded.
"Why is my eye in your nightdress?"
Every fine hair on the back of Susan's neck lifted, and her hair swept up and back off her shoulders. She only suppressed the shiver that followed with great effort. The last time she'd heard that tone from Teatime had been in the Tooth Fairy's castle, when he asked her, from six inches away, whether she needed to fear the Reaper. The menace in his voice rang clearly through the innocent words (Wait, no, not innocent at all! Susan thought, feeling herself go red), and the ape in her DNA howled at her to move.
This time, like the last, Teatime's eyes drifted down away from her face. Last time, it had been to indicate without words that he knew what the omega sigil on her cloak clasp meant, and perhaps to intimidate her. This time, his gaze followed movement. Susan was embarrassed to notice that her right hand, which she immediately labeled traitorous, had wrapped itself around the eye in question.
"Safekeeping," she rasped. Mentally, she cursed whatever hormone had stolen the air from her lungs and the moisture from her throat. He was a ghost, for heavens' sake! He could not hurt her, so there was no reason for a fight or flight response! Susan pointedly sat down on the mattress with her legs tucked beneath her; she tucked the bedding around her waist and arranged her hands just so on her lap. If she couldn't fully calm herself, Susan reasoned she could at least try to bluff Teatime.
He cannot hurt me in this form. Now, if only that niggling feeling of dread would just go away! She took refuge in the familiarity of her haughtiest glare.
The look Teatime gave her in return was one of a man reaching the end of his patience. "Safekeeping," he repeated in the same menacing tone. "Safe from whom? I can only assume from me, since you failed to mention it at all."
"Well, it's spent much of the last five years rolling across schoolyard pavement," she snapped back. "And now it's not. Sounds rather safe to me."
Her only instinct was to distract him from taking her to task about it. She'd spent too much time in the last several weeks feeling ill prepared and wrong-footed to want Teatime to chide her about something else. He'd manipulated her into admitting that since he was now present, he had the right of consent when it came to reading his autobiography, though he hadn't been able to convince her that she had no right to read it at all, ever – she was part Death, after all. And that business with the Assassin's Guild! If he lectured her once more about having a plan or about her so-called inferiority, she'd guarantee his resurrection just so she could give him a swat 'round the earhole!
"It's been what?"
She went red again; Teatime's gaze flicked to her cheek, where her birthmark was. But, clearly refusing to be distracted, he focused on her eyes again, intent on her reply.
"One of my charges was using it as a shooter," she answered reluctantly. "In marbles."
"Oh. I'm amazed he survived," Teatime answered, finally speaking in his more customary chirp. The rasp of his more serious voice made Susan's skin prickle, and until now, she'd never thought she'd be happy to hear him speak in the tones of a schoolboy.
"It is magic, you know," he added, pointedly looking down at the collar of her nightdress. "A wizard corrupted one of Blind Io's eyes."
She had it off her neck and sitting on the bed in seconds. She felt her hair pull back into a low horsetail, finally out of the way and behaving itself – fear, as always, worked wonders.
"What? Would it have affected the boy?" Susan pinned the ghost with a look more ferocious than any she'd yet used on him. Fear transmuted to anger rather quickly in her system. It was a talent.
Unfazed, Teatime tried to talk over her, to interrupt her. "Why do you have it?"
"Were you mad before or after you got that?" she demanded, waving at the pouch and its contents.
"Why didn't you tell me you had it?"
"Do I need to take Gawain to the University? To a doctor?"
"I thought we were allies, so why didn't you tell me?"
"What has this done to that child?"
"Nothing. Now, answer the question."
This came out in the tightly controlled, lower voice, the one that sounded like it came out of a dangerous man rather than a man-boy with perspective issues. And it brought Susan down from the edge of her protective rage, calling her senses back into the present. She realized that she and Teatime had been shouting at each other from half a foot apart. Going red, yet again, she sat back on her heels and gathered the bedclothes into her lap. The eye had rolled toward the foot of her bed, and she glared at it, happy to see it at a distance.
"The wizards wanted to use it for the tracer spell," she ground out, still staring at the pouch at the other end of the bed. Her hands clawed in the comforter, and it took an act of will not to cross her arms protectively over her chest.
"That makes no sense."
"That's what I told them." She sighed. "I'd forgotten that Gawain had ever had it until they brought it up."
Teatime, who had not shifted back from the position he'd taken for their shouting match, leaned into Susan's personal space. "So why keep it hidden, Susan?"
"Look, it's right there! Just take it and leave me alone!"
Closer. "Susan."
STOP IT.
His outline vibrated, but he didn't stop to examine the experience. "Why, Susan?"
"Look, I don't know! All right?" She glared up, as the ghost was now leaning quite over her. "Control, maybe. Are you happy now?" Fighting bedclothes the entire way, she struggled to the far side of the bed and to her feet. But when she turned back to glare at him, Teatime wasn't there.
"Control?" he repeated from just over her left shoulder. She would have jumped if she hadn't been so angry.
"Leverage! Some kind of currency to buy back some privacy – some normality!" Without really thinking, Susan brought up an arm to shove him out of the way; she sucked in a surprised breath as her arm went numb. The surprise shifted back to anger once she realized Teatime had chosen not to dodge – had used her own actions to stop her cold, as it were.
Oh, to hell with that! she thought. Susan gritted her teeth, ducked her head, and strode right through the ghost. She'd braced herself for the cold, but it was always, always worse than she remembered. Her breath hitched, and she would swear her heart skipped two beats. Worst of all: Since she and Teatime were of a similar height, her head passed through his; something in there dragged against something in Susan's brain, leaving a tingling trail through her mind. She whipped around, trembling and shocked, just in time to see Teatime cover up an expression that implied he'd been smacked by a troll.
Before he could say a word – Something inappropriate and childish, no doubt! – Susan jabbed a shaking finger at him. She hissed, "Every time something weird happens, I suddenly lose my autonomy! It's as though I am a puppet! I am not going to sit quietly and endure it this time!"
And suddenly realizing she'd revealed far more than was wise – more, certainly, than she'd wanted to – she flailed for whatever distraction she could find. "You want your blasted eye, there it is! You can have it, if you can even touch it!"
Teatime shrugged. "I wouldn't be able to hold it," he said, switching once more to nonchalant schoolboy tones. The abrupt switch made Susan dizzy. He interrupted the next rising tirade by adding with a vague wave at his own face, "I have the ghost of it here, anyway. Appropriately enough."
Yet again, Teatime's demeanour changed; he did his weird blipping thing, closing the distance between them, and leaned into Susan's space. "You," he drawled, "Have a problem with respecting others' privacy. I wonder why."
"This coming from you!"
"Yes, from me. Because it's my book! And my eye!"
That's not… ! That's … a valid point. Given that her only options seemed to be doing a stranded-goldfish impression and fuming, Susan chose fuming. She couldn't call him a hypocrite, because that would let him levy the same charge against her, especially now. Pointing up his faults in retaliation would merely be more attempts at distraction. And he was proving very hard to distract today.
But they were important!, Susan protested in her own defense, safely in her mind. And they furthered the mission! The book did, at any rate.
After a few more moments of silence, Teatime pointed out, "Usually, when one is caught out like this, she apologizes. It's only polite."
She glared at him, smiling sourly and trying to tamp down her irritation. "When you apologize for trying to kill my grandfather – without a contract no less – then I'll apologize for keeping your eye from you." Her smile grew into a smug grin as Teatime glowered.
"He's probably actually unkillable," he complained. "I don't see what people have against a healthy spirit of philosophical inquiry."
Momentarily stunned, Susan stared at him. She registered the sensation of her guilt dwindling to embers; it felt just a little like disappointment.
"Right," she huffed. At her left hand, her dressing gown was folded over the bed's footboard. She snatched it up and thrust her arms through the sleeves. Barking out a bitter laugh, she amended her previous condition, "When you're able to live by the moral standards you set for others, then you can dictate who apologizes to you." Then she stalked out of the room, calling over her shoulder, "I'm going to dress. Evidently, I have a long day ahead of me at the Guild."
"Oh, and Vimes?"
The commander suppressed a sigh before turning back from the door of the Oblong Office. "Sir?"
"How is Miss Susan?"
Vimes had already used his 'You tell me' line years ago, so he settled for, "I'm not the one to ask, sir."
"I only mention it because she is due to attend some… workshops at the Assassins' Guild this morning." Vetinari was using that off-hand tone of voice to which Vimes had grown very sensitive; it amounted to an order. Vetinari added, "The lessons should prove useful in her later life."
Vimes waited. The order part was out. All that was missing was the incentive.
"Assuming, of course, that she survives."
Aha. There it was. He respected the girl, and Sybil had pronounced her a "bright, solid young woman"; Young Sam had all but climbed on her lap during his first meeting with her. She was by all accounts an effective teacher and a hell of a protector. And Vetinari had yoked her with that mad ghost of hers on some project or another; so Vimes was to protect the Patrician's investment. It was just as well that Carrot was handling the Igor murders; that had left Vimes with time on his hands.
"Lord Downey should be expecting me, then," Vimes sighed as he left.