"Can you tell me about it?" Rianne drew circles on Jay's back with her fingernails, watching the trails fade after.

"The noise?"

"Is it voices?"

He shook his head as much as he could with it turned so he could look at her. "Just one voice."

She'd thought that might be - and that she knew the rest. "Yours."

He looked startled, then smiled. "Of course you'd know. Yeah."

It made, she thought, a sort of twisted sense. He was a kettle of perfectionist, control freak, rage, and a vicious internal critic, all seasoned with just enough instability for him to keep making his half of his private war public. He really wasn't raving at all the things and people supposedly out to get him so much as he was shouting over and over at that voice to shut up about whose fault everything was, maybe even trying to give it other targets. And somehow I make it shut the hell up. No wonder he's so determined to keep me close by. She didn't know how she did that - she suspected it was much more of something he did himself in response to her - but that didn't really matter, did it? Whatever happened, it worked.

She kept tracing circles; she could feel him relaxing under her fingertips. "So you made sure I need you just as much."

"We're alike, eh. Now we are that way, too."

And not a drop of guilt in his voice over it, either. It might be good to never forget exactly how ruthless he can be. It was on her lips to say they were different in one way, because she didn't have a voice like that. It didn't get said. She did have one. But it whispered rather than yelling, and advised and warned rather than berated. And it left her alone most of the time. She'd just always assumed that everyone had one of those. "What do we do now?"

"This. We can do this for the rest of the day."

She wasn't against the idea at all. They'd have to do something else eventually, but today could take care of itself.

He went from relaxed to asleep without her being aware of it at first. She didn't mind; from what she'd seen, he slept about as badly as his situation might suggest, so whatever catnaps he got, she was happy to sit watch over. It gave her time to sit and have a think about the next question she had to tackle: Should she let Chaos know exactly where they could roll up spying and stick it, or let them figure out for themselves that she was through? Her heart wanted to tell them, and to spare not one word, but her head still said they'd only take it out on Jay. That wasn't worth getting to do a little gloating. Ishii at least had obviously figured it out already, anyway.

She was going to need a job, too. It wasn't money; she found herself not needing any. It was a legit job on the rolls being better for her visa status, and needing to be out around people. Being here all the time without a break was too intense. She couldn't imagine Jay liking the idea, but it was where he was going to have to give a little for both their sake.

Her fingers drifted idly into his hair. One vague, happy sound was his whole response.

How did you decide to trust me? Even knowing what I was sent to do, you've been this way. She didn't get that more than anything else; her arrival should have triggered total paranoia, but it had done the opposite. It was as if he'd known what the outcome would be long before she had - or had been planning for it far longer than she'd realized.

"What are you thinking so hard about?"

"I thought you were asleep."

"I was. Tell me."

"I'm thinking you're better at planning ahead than you like to let people think you are."

"I am. You could help if you wanted to." He turned onto his side and tugged her down next to him so they were practically nose to nose.

"I thought you wanted me out of it."

"I do. You won't be in it, or anywhere near it. Just here with me, finding places where you can poke holes in ideas, the gaps in plans. You've got a more...bendy mind than I do. Creative. You can think around corners, over top of roadblocks."

"You know all that already, do you?"

He smiled. "I'll bet you thought I was too busy getting laid to listen to what you say. I've heard every word. You're sharp."

"Are you trying in your own particular way to tell me you like me for my mind?"

"That too. Consultant sounds better than secretary, doesn't it?"

"We need to talk about the job thing."

"If you can find one that will let you travel with me, I have no objections."

"Oh, well, that should be easy."

"Think of it as your chance to do something you want to do. Your own things, your own schedule - and mine, too."

She laughed; there was no helping it. "And you become a patron of the arts?"

"Isn't that what kings do?" His expression invited her to go on sharing the joke with him.

"Can I have a few minutes?"

He looked genuinely surprised that she'd ask. "Of course."

"You want to go somewhere else? You know, so you don't get busted talking to Mata Hari?"

"I talk to anyone I wish."

Rianne shrugged. She'd tried to cover him as best she could. "I'm out of it. Completely. It's not like I ever knew anything I could have told them, so I doubt anyone's actually worried about it. I just...wanted you to know."

"Out completely means away from White?"

"No, it doesn't."

"There is nothing he can do for you but damage you."

"It's my risk to take. If you really want to help me, just...stop the part that's about me. I know all of it isn't, and you're not just going to stop with this thing between you. But leave me out of it, or I can't be out."

"I'll leave you out when you're away from him."

And how else did you think this was going to go? But she had to try. "It's my choice to make."

"And there are consequences for choices." He shook his head. "I am not trying to force you to come back to me. If you don't want that, you don't. But I won't stand by and watch him destroy you. Not without trying to stop it."

"Please don't do this. I don't want to end up hating you. But if you do something and blame me for it, I'll never forgive you."

"I would not blame you. It is his fault, not yours. You should not blame yourself, for the same reason."

You're asking a man to be reasonable after he tried to eat his way through a door. "I had to try. I won't bother you again."

"You do not bother me. Don't forget that when you need help. It is not trouble to me."

Just one more reminder why you're my only regret in all this. She wasn't sure what she'd thought this would accomplish. Maybe it was just the only way she could say she was sorry. It didn't seem to have done much in that direction, either.