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Emiiliie14: Glad to hear! These are all written and edited, so updates should stay relatively constant. (I'm mainly keeping up a schedule to prevent lags with other works later on.)

B is for Benumbed

"How seriously did you think about leaving me to drown back then?"

The question leaves her lips easily once it crosses her mind. And it's not like they have anything else to do than to play the twenty-one questions. She is, well, not freezing yet, but cold after sitting still for good forty minutes in the small ledge that Jacob had lured her to climb onto. "The starts and the Aurora Borealis will be really beautiful for the next two weeks. You are welcome to join."

She pulls her gloved hands deeper into the protection of her armpits while Jacob turns languidly towards her and raises his brows. The cold isn't really that bad but staying stationary is what gets her. And she has an intuition that Jacob knows what he is doing to her, calling her to this remote place on the other side of the mountains from the Valley and giving her time to think.

The silence is not her friend.

There are the smallest of hints that she is healing from Trinity and the Valley – Paititi is still far from that list. In the five weeks that she has stayed here, she has begun to sleep in longer phases and she doesn't wake Jacob up as often anymore. He never said anything in the first place, but his looks in the morning told her enough for her to swallow the unnecessary embarrassment and make long trips into the Valley to escape it all. Maybe she should have stayed putting heads with him without giving leverage, but escaping the situation – even for a moment – was the only thing her worn-out mind had been able to do. He is annoying in the way he doesn't ask her anything, doesn't expect anything from her as if he already knows her inside out. She hates being visible, hates that she has very little to make herself useful to him, to fortify things to prepare for the moment when they'll ultimately go wrong.

Her mind is driving her crazy now when she doesn't have a goal and he knows it, brings her here to watch the night sky, so, that the torment will eventually grow strong enough to crumble her walls of silence.

However, she doesn't budge an inch and determines to familiarize herself with the silence to make him answer her without having to specify what she wants or excepts – truthfully, she has no idea of those things herself.

He looks at her with the annoying, calm smile. Whereas she has balanced herself half-lying over two tree trunks and a stump, he is sitting perfectly poised, leaning his arms on his knees. "Enough."

The corners of her mouth tug at the non-answer. "You pulled me out," and when he doesn't reply, "So, it doesn't really count."

Jacob turns to look at the scenery before them again. (The stars nor Aurora Borealis are on the sky yet, because, of course, he brought them here an hour in advance.) "You said, you'd have thought of leaving me into the river. So, I simply estimated based on that. Thought it would be nice to have an even amount."

"Noble," she settles to state and moves to cross her outstretched legs the other way around. However, she succeeds in something, because Jacob glances at her with an expression that speaks of exasperation and of all the things he tries to keep himself from saying to her. She might not be ready to trust those things yet, but she isn't blind.

She almost talks about how 'noble' doesn't cover many of the people she has come across, but it comes too close to Roth and Alex and all the other people who were far too noble, who valued her far too much for their own good, thus, she pushes the conversation piece away. Jacob seems to sense her thoughts because he waits for a while before returning to their topic and admitting quieter this time, "Too much."

Maybe she should be offended, but instead, the honest admission, a very human one in its core, makes her satisfied and smile widely. This only makes Jacob eye at her again, still unaccustomed to how she can startle him without even saying a word. He should know by now how many people have been actively after her scalp and set their wills to break her; him thinking if he should bring a potential threat and a Source-hunter to the Valley, and still saving her, is insignificant in comparison. She even tells him that, but Jacob only turns somber in response and bows his head. She is too used to the danger that it feels weird how it affects him – especially with everything he must have seen. Even Jonah has somewhat accustomed to the gun pointed at her head, but then again, Jonah keeps her in too high regard in everything. Jacob knows what it's like to be more than a human and can probably see her flaws and fragility more clearly with the perspective, she reasons to herself.

"I think it's admirable – how invested you are to save everyone," she says, diving after him into the somber mood.

Jacob sighs – in acknowledgment or disagreement, she isn't sure – and gives her a lifeless nod. She has a rough guess on the lives he hasn't managed to save, the ones that he has chosen to leave up to God instead of intervening, but neither one of them brings that subject out. After a second of silence, he fixes his posture and crosses his fingers loosely, "You are the same."

"No, I'm not." She has to tense her abs to keep herself from falling to the ground from her perch with how vigorously she is shaking her head. "I kill for mercy. That's not quite the same."

Jacob turns to look at her and she feels exposed, because he must see the pain in her eyes and the hardness on her face. Her hands squirm to dig even deeper into her armpits.

He doesn't judge her and somehow that makes it easier for her to breathe, but the voices in her head only use the silence for their advantage.

Suddenly, it all comes too much and she has had enough of sitting still, waiting for something to happen in the world around her, taking her guilt nice and easy just because he wants her to see something breathtaking. Pure practice alone lets her get up without tumbling onto the ground.

"Lara."

She knows she should be ashamed of the show she is making, how uncourteous she is being when she is a guest in here, but she isn't really – simply a guest anymore. At some unknown point during the past five weeks, she has become so used to Jacob's company and this place that he is not just an ally or the Remnant leader who has been kind enough to house her, but a friend to whom she dares to show her feelings, even the ugly ones.

The realization hits her faintly when she is ready to walk away and sees the apology in his eyes. Because at some point, she has stopped being another wandering soul to be guided with faith from a respectable distance; he is just a human with feelings and uncertainties in this, with her.

He doesn't say anything, probably already worried that he has done too much and simultaneously scared of all the things he wants to say. But that's okay with her. Still, she is worse with silence and apologizes softly before sitting back down.

They don't talk for the rest of the trip but she catches a glimpse of Jacob's soft smile when they walk back to the Valley. She plays the memory of the arctic sky in her head and, momentarily, her steps feel a little less heavy in the snow.