Tumblr Prompt: when one stops the kiss to whisper "I'm sorry, are you sure you-" and they answer by kissing them more. (Pre-War Storm release)

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The second cook staff had moved on to the next camp earlier in the day. Company 231 received their orders to proceed to the mess earlier, at 11:30. Mare hated the idea of eating with the rest of the camp. They had shared the 1:00 mess with just four other companies and after the first few days, they all stopped staring at her. Now she had seventeen companies of craning necks to look forward to. As if that weren't bad enough, it also meant being forced into the same space as Cal and the many silver companies the Guard avoided.

Mare had only seen Cal a few times in passing since her company arrived at the camp. Every time a dozen faces waited for a brutal emotional response as entertainment. But as far as she knew, Cal didn't even know she was assigned to Company 231 or where they had been bunked in the tent city. The future king of Norta likely didn't care. Of course, she preferred to pretend that the months since their break-up had stoppered the bleeding and even started the healing.

With confidence faked on her stoic face, Mare mustered her best act infront of all those waiting for her response. Cal Calore–Tiberius Calore–would have no effect on her. The unfamiliar faces behind the pots nervously glanced at her and then to the departing line of Silver soldiers in front of her. She inferred Cal's triangulated position by how those eyes followed him through the tables behind her.

Mare and Kilorn clambered onto wooden crates that lined the area, the only seats left for their almost too-late-for-food company. And even though she tried not to, her eyes found Cal taking his seat among the soldiers. The fates seemed to cruelly enjoy the potential as much as the on-lookers. Cal and his silvers sat two tables away from Mare on the crates. Once spotted, Mare willed her eyes to stay on her bowl of stew, but they broke up and out again and again. Surely, it didn't hurt to look, the lack of pain was a sure sign she had gotten over him.

Cal seemed to be dressing-down one of the soldiers a few seats down and across from him. His eyes narrowed and he pointed at the man with his spoon punctuating his words. The man, adjusted the light armor that hung on his shoulders and nodded before begining his meal. Mare craved to hear Cal's authoritative tenner and exactly how he managed his men, kept them in line but never crossed to cause them to become disheartened or disloyal. She wondered if he and Farley had similar approaches, if that was why they'd maintained an easy friendship despite what he'd done to her before—.

Mare's focus shifted to Kilorn for a moment as he told a new joke to those closest to them. She missed the start and when she figured she was too lost to catch up, she turned back to observing Cal–his head snapping away from her and back to the table. She flushed, knowing he'd caught her, and she'd caught him, and that shouldn't have felt as warm and tingly as it did. Rather than rip her eyes away, she would keep her's on his if only to further prove how little sway he had on her.

After months underground eating what ever Kilorn and Ferrah brought back, Mare had thought the pickiness had been crushed out of them. However, Cal–armor clad and between his soldiers–crinkled his nose and looked at the red-sauce stew then at the door. He pushed back from the table and glanced side to side, giving up his plan when he caught Mare's eye. He looked back to the bowl and tentatively dipped just the tip bringing a small drop of liquid to his tongue. He looked almost green. As he rose, looking directly at her, he seemed to be apologizing before taking his ration of bread and leaving. The bowl was quickly divided among those at the table, nothing went to waste in the mess.

Mare's irritation flared when that first though–whether he could sustain on bread alone–came through her mind. She shouldn't care if Cal ate or not. And he certainly shouldn't care if she saw him turning his nose up at perfectly good food. Caring what each other thought had been abandoned, first by him and then by her. And yet, Mare left her own slices of bread untouched. And then she wrapped them in paper.

When everyone in the camp was eating, the smallest noise carried across the camp. She heard the thumping of heavy blows in the training quads. The closer she came, the more the heavy breathing and the grunts of effort tugged at her. Clutching the bread she moved around the last row of tents, past the collections of practice weapons, and into full view of the static punching dummies staked into the soil.

"You didn't eat," Mare called to Cal. He paused in mid punch and turned slowly to face her.

"Not hungry," he dismissed.

Cal practiced in his full-combat gear–adding a helmet and shin guards since he made his retreat from the mess. Though he didn't wear the same types of armor plating as the reds, the weight of it still made a difference in his body mechanics. Though, as Mare examined it, the seams overlapped where they used to meet flush. The straps of the buckles hung out long and slightly unwieldy, pulled as tight as their length allowed.

"What happened to your armor?"

Cal looked down, touching it with his hands, looking for the problem.

"No, your armor. That set doesn't fit you."

"It is my armor. And it fits fine." Though he sounded definitive in how he said it, the way he twisted it easily on his frame underlined her concern. Regardless of what he did or didn't think, his armor sagged a size or two too big.

Mare stepped towards him, a more immediate assessment of his health edging past her desire for space. She looked around his eyes–dark, bruise-like shadows. She tilted her head and saw the gap between his jaw and his ear and his neck– a pronounced hallow. And the well between his collarbones–it collected his sweat in a deep indentation.

"Are you sick?"

Cal tipped his head down, avoided her eyes, looked at his bruised and bleeding knuckles.

Mare repeated, "Tiberius, are you sick? Are you okay? Should I get a healer?"

"I'm not sick," he spat. Cal's hair obscured his face. He started to turn and to move towards the tents.

"Are you sure? Ti–" he moved faster. Mare insisted on a response, walking behind him. "Are you okay?"

He gave her no answer, so she followed doing everything short of touching him until he lead her though the doorway into a small, unremarkable tent. Then he turned on her, wheeled fast enough that she stepped back and charges sizzled under her skin.

"No, Mare, I'm not okay. And I haven't been okay since I screwed this all up. And I'm even less okay now that you're three hundred feet away every night hating my guts." Irritation gave way to regret, his eyes closing slowly and his chest rising with a deep inhalation that never seemed to end.

Mare's jaw twitched open, moved like it would speak of it's own accord, and then shut. Her brain fizzled and twitched while she let the sparks settle back inside her.

"Sorry. Not fair. Thank you for your concern. I'm okay." Cal contradicted and then removed himself to the corner, behind his cot, to start unfastening the buckles on his armor. Sweat made his undershirt cling to him and all his unnatural angles.

Looking for hope or consolation–maybe hope of a consolation–Mare swallowed and then asked, "Do you regret it?"

Cal carefully aligned the plates with the rack, ensuring proper drying. He fidgeted, avoiding her.

"Never mind." Mare started backing out.

"I have so many things to regret, but yeah, this… that… that is pretty near the top." His voice shook.

Cal straightened, his shoulders relaxed, and his fists flexed a few times until they unfolded. He sighed, loud, and then turned as if he was looking for nothing more than a missing sock on the floor. Then he startled, seeing her still standing there. Mare realized that he thought she'd left, that he was alone, possibly since she'd last spoke.

"Do you mean it?" Mare edged closer.

Cal nodded, slowly, sadly, his fists bawling back up and his shoulders rising. Her body moved in hesitant steps while his face tightened and his eyes welled. She hunted his features for deception, for lies, for another betrayal. The first tear sliding down his cheek seemed to wash his feet out from under him. Cal fell to his knees in front of her. Mare's hands ran through his sweat slicked hair, letting him press his face into her stomach, feeling his hands on her legs.

Then she fell, meeting him on the ground and as close to face-to-face that his height allowed. Her hands slid down his face and her lips tasted his lips, the salt of sweat melding with the wood-burnt character of his lips.

Cal pulled back, laughing and pulling at his soaked, stinking shirt, "I'm sorry, are you sure–"