Akali's eyes rested upon the injured stranger she had brought home who was now silently sleeping on her living room couch. His body was almost entirely covered in bandages, with little bits of blood spotting them. Somehow, after clumsily bringing him home, Akali had managed to strip him of his alarmingly colorless clothes, though she had to muster all of her restraint to not look at his region as she cleaned and bandaged his many wounds. After she had treated him thoroughly, she threw her own clothes, which were drenched in his blood, into the washing machine.

Who is he? Akali laced her fingers together and rested her chin on them. She watched him patiently and intently from afar for any signs of movement. He could be a murderer. He might murder me in my sleep. Her eyes traveled up and down the man's serene face. But he looks so peaceful sleeping. Could a murderer's sleeping face be that angelic? Despite all her optimistic thoughts about the sleeping stranger's identity, the nasty scar along his left eye made Akali's stomach turn unpleasantly to no end. Instead of sitting in the kitchen ogling the gorgeous man's body, she stood up and walked over to the phone. It was her duty as a best friend to tell Shen about the events of her night. Surely, Shen wouldn't disprove of Akali taking in a very fine injured man to heal his wounds and take care of him. Akali confidently dialed in Shen's number into the phone and lifted it up to her ear.

"Hello?" Shen's strong voice bellowed through the phone.

"Shen." Akali's voice was steady. "I found a man almost beat to death by four men tonight," she began with conviction, yet with each word she spoke, a pit grew in her stomach, leading her to verbally diarrhea. "I brought him home to heal his wounds because it was snowing tonight and I couldn't leave him out there to die. The hospital was too far, so if I had brought him there, he wouldn't have made the trip, especially since I was walking, and he was bleeding all over, so I panicked and brought him to my apartment. So right now, he's-"

"Stop." Akali went mute by his command, thankful that she didn't need to blab on. "He's inside your home?!" The angry tone in Shen's voice made the pit triple in size.

"Yes," she quietly replied. "But he's just-"

"Akali, you invited a stranger inside your home who you know nothing about. What if he murders you in your sleep or, god forbid, rapes you? What then?!" She couldn't conjure any voice to speak, weak or strong. Perhaps it had locked itself away temporarily from fear of Shen's thundering and disappointed voice.

"B-but he looks so innocent." Her head turned to gaze at the sleeping stranger on her sofa. "There's no way he will do any of those things! And if he does, you know I can easily snap his neck!"

"I don't want to give anyone an opportunity to hurt you ever again."

"Shen, I'm a grown woman, god damn it! I can handle myself! Who do you think rendered all four of those men unconscious? Besides, I highly doubt he's a murderer or a rapist!"

"You're too trusting for your own good. Remember the last time we dared to trust a stranger? Must I mention Zed?!" Shen countered her with ease, bringing up a subject that he knew would render Akali speechless and weak.

"I was just trying to-"

"Help?! If you were trying to help him and yourself, you would have told someone else and let them deal with him! I don't want you letting in strangers from fear of you getting hurt!" Although Akali knew Shen was doing this for her safety, an unfamiliar rage welled up within her at his words, and she felt an increasing desire to kill something.

"I was just trying to do my fucking job! I'm a nurse, alright Shen? It is my job to help those who are wounded, whether they're Noxian, Demacian, or Ionian! I must fulfill my duty to heal any and all injured, no matter the sacrifices I must make! That was the oath I pledged when I became a nurse! This is why I became a nurse. To help people, not to let them bleed to death in deserted alleyways! I can't do that to anyone, Shen. You know that better than I do! How could I call myself a nurse if I just stood there like an innocent bystander and let someone else tend to his wounds, knowing I myself had the same training to save him?!" Her chest rose and fell rapidly after her entire tirade, but she was nowhere close to being finished. "You're a doctor, Shen. Did you not pledge the same oath I did, all those months ago? Did you not pledge to help the sick, regardless of their backgrounds?" Akali huffed out a sarcastic and condescending sigh for a dramatic measure. "I thought if anyone could understand my reason for taking in a wounded person, it'd be you. If you can't understand my duty to help others, then I'm sorry for calling and bothering you."

Akali promptly hung up the phone and slammed it down on the kitchen counter, seething with anger. How could Shen not understand her perspective? Was it not her duty to help the sick? He was a doctor himself, for Christ's sake! Akali marched over to her table, plopped down on a chair, and buried her face into her elbow. Her eyes grew misty as tears began to pool onto the crevice of her elbow. Why couldn't Shen understand? Was he not a doctor like her, sworn to help others, just like her? So why couldn't he empathize with her? The tears continuously cascaded down her cheeks as she silently sobbed to herself.

Suddenly, a hand on her shoulder nudged her gently. Akali's first reflex was to jump up from the chair and pin the person to the wall, rendering him immobile. Her eyes widened considerably when she realized that she had attacked the man that had just been sleeping on her couch. His face was contorted with pain as more blood began to stain his bandages. She released the choke hold she had on his neck and apologized furiously.

"Oh my god! I'm so sorry!" Akali forced the stranger to lean on her side as she walked to the couch and rested him on it. "I'm so sorry. I was just so stressed that I completely forgot I took you home to take care of you! It was not in my intention to hurt you even more!" She hurriedly ran into the kitchen to get more bandages, then zipped back to the stranger who was sitting obediently on the couch. She knelt between his legs, forgetting entirely that he was a complete stranger, to survey his wounds, which she herself had re-opened.

And I call myself a nurse. What a shameful nurse I am to cause more harm than help!

His eyes glistened with amusement as her hands attempted to circle his abdomen with bandages to stop the bleeding. Her cheeks flamed with embarrassment and she refused to make any eye contact with him. "It was my fault. I'm truly very sorry that I hurt you! I just wasn't thinking, and-" His hands moved to grab her wrists gently, stopping her from closing his wound. As if on cue, her heart beat bounced against her rib cage violently.

"It's alright," came his throaty and curt reply. His voice was so deep and mysterious that Akali lost all feeling within her body, though many thoughts of ravaging him right on the couch filled her mind. Afraid and too surprised to move, Akali stared at the floor as if it had suddenly become the most interesting thing in the world. She could barely register one of his hands leaving her wrist to lift up her chin so that her eyes directly met his own.

"Your eyes... They're red," Akali said breathlessly without thinking, getting lost under his own heated gaze. Like blood, she silently mused to herself.

"And your eyes are filled with tears," the man coolly replied. He brushed a thumb under her eyes to flick away the lingering tears on her cheeks. "Are you alright, miss?" Nothing could stop her inward giggling and profuse blush when she heard "miss."

"Yes, I'm perfectly fine, but you're still bleeding, so just let me finish healing yo-" She shook off the hand that was holding her wrist and attempted to stand up, but he gripped her wrist again.

"Thank you for providing me with shelter and care." His eyes held no lie as he spoke to her. "You're welcome," was all Akali could say as she finished bandaging him. After she was done she laid him down on the couch and sat down on the armrest beside his head.

"How did you ward off the men?"

"Their impatience led to their downfall. I simply exploited their weaknesses and knocked them out," Akali answered, thinking back to her victorious battle. The man smiled at her. "A sexy woman capable of fighting and healing right next to me. I must be in Heaven," he said coyly, amused when Akali turned the other way to hide her blush. Even though every fiber of his being consistently caused an involuntary blush that glowed brightly on her cheeks, Akali knew she had to ask.

"Who are you?" The three words hung dead in the tense air, but his eyes did not falter a bit as they stared lazily at the ceiling.

"I do not know." Her breathing stopped all together as the dreadful silence began to suffocate her. His mouth opened again to speak. "I believe the men who attacked me back there were trying to kill me out of pure enjoyment and satisfaction. I hypothesize that they hit my head, and as a result I cannot remember anything." Akali wanted nothing more than to give him a safe and warm hug, but she restrained herself as he continued his recollection. "Unfortunately I was unable to fight because I was already tired from running." His blood red eyes glowed strongly under the dim lights. It made Akali's insides lurch with both fear and lust.

Stop it, she scolded herself, as there were much more important things to think about. "What were you trying to run away from?" she asked, not knowing why she was afraid of the answer. His eyebrows furrowed in an attempt to remember things about his forgotten past. His eyes seemed to grow a darker shade of red, almost like maroon, as he dug deeper into his staggering memory. Finally, after about five minutes, the strained expression plastered on his face changed to that of defeat. His eyes shifted to meet hers, and spoke. "Again, I do not know." Needless to say, Akali was disappointed from having obtained almost no information about this amnesia-ridden man. Her eyes instinctively drifted to the floor, clueless of what to do with this man on her couch.

"I'm sorry for bothering you. Thank you for your hospitality, but I should really leave before I cause further trouble," the man said, breaking the silence. He made a futile struggle to rise from the couch without reopening his wounds, which triggered the nursing side of Akali. She gently, albeit forcefully pushed his upper body back down onto the sofa.

"You are not going anywhere with those wounds of yours." That I stupidly reopened. "You're still bleeding, and your body needs time to heal from your multiple injuries."

"But I-"

"No but's. I am not abandoning a man with severe amnesia in a blizzard." As if to emphasize Akali's point, a loud blizzard wind whistled through the house. "If you go out there in your condition, you're asking for your own death. A slow and cold one, too," Akali argued. Her mouth opened in an effort to convince him more stay, but his light laughter abruptly cut her off. Yet again, a light blush dusted her pale cheeks as she tried to figure out the reason for his laughter.

"Alright, alright. You've made your point, woman," he managed to say between laughs. "I'll stay, provided that you don't worry so much about me." The corners of Akali's lips turned into a smile, and she replied, "Deal." As the stranger's laughs gradually died down, he asked her, "What do I call you?"

"You may call me Akali." It soon dawned upon her that this man needed a name that she could call him by. "What should I call you?"

"You may call me Master," the man joked, mimicking her previous response. "You must dote on me and cater to my every whim." A girly giggle left her lips that surprised Akali herself. Since when did she giggle like that? "I'm serious! You need a name that people can call you!"

"Uh... I do not know of any good names," was his clueless reply. A couple of names left Akali's lips. "Isaac? Gabriel? Clark? Bill? Adrian?" Each name was met with a face of disgust and a "no thank you."

"Greg, Louis, Rob, Z-" Akali bit her tongue before she finished saying that dreadful name. That bastard... Why was he still on her mind almost twelve hours later?

"Z. I like that letter," the man replied. "Do you know any names that begin with z?" The innocent look he gave her nearly made Akali's heart stop from cuteness. "Well," she cleared her throat to think straight, "off the top of my head, I can think of Zachary, Zane, Zevach-"

"Zevach," he cut her off, but Akali didn't mind at all. "Zevach," he repeated, testing out the name on his tongue. "I like that name," he murmured to himself. "It gives me a sense of warmth," he said to the ceiling. "I sound crazy, don't I?" He laughed heartily, Akali joining in soon after.

"Well, strange man that I found in an alleyway bleeding to death, your name is now Zevach."

Dun, dun, dun! Welp, there you have it folks, the meeting of Akali and Zevach (aka the "strange man found in an alleyway bleeding to death"). c: Yay. I actually spent quite a few hours brainstorming and writing this, but it's much longer than the other two chapters.

Hope you enjoyed reading this chapter! c: Feel free to review, as it does help me improve my writing.

Have a great sunshiny day!