Redemption

Author: Miss Lizz

Rating: R for language, themes, and such items as that.

Disclaimer: Same as last chapter

Chapter 3: Waking

At the very most, Elle had been unconscious for only fifteen or so minutes but to X who sat pensively by her side, it could very well have been hours. Should she not have recovered by now? The colouring had returned to her face at least but she still lay like death upon the bed. It was beginning to frighten him. Mayhap the healer should be summoned…? He had never seen a human faint before― this human especially― and had no inkling of what was normal. If his little human could fully be termed normal; from what he'd read about human females, she was from a different mold entirely…

Not that it really mattered, he kept saying to himself. Maybe if he said it enough, he'd actually start to believe it again.

Deep in his heart, protectiveness on a primitive, subconscious level unfurled its silken wings and took a first, teetering gasp so that when her ice-blue eyes fluttered open, he went to his knees beside the bed.

"Elle?"

She blinked several times before moving her slightly unfocused gaze to his face in absolute confusion. "Where am I?"

Was disorientation common in fainting spells? He reached to help her to a sitting position and received a strange, mystified look in return.

"You're in my… bed… chamber," X spoke haltingly, unsure of what her reaction would be at that bit of news.

"Why?" Her response was slow.

At least she was being calm about this. He didn't want to get into a fight with her now, no matter how much fun those arguments could be, this was neither the time nor the place to have one.

He answered without pause, "You fainted and I carried you out here." The look that suddenly crossed her face made him wish he could say something else but he knew not what.

"What, no comment about my weight? No laughing about how heavy I m, saying I need to lose a few pounds?" Something that was almost like bitterness or hurt seeped into her voice.

X did not understand this new mood or why she was so concerned about her weight right at this moment. It made absolutely no sense to him. He said the first thing that popped into his head to try and ease her thoughts, "Elle, you're not heavy. I think you're light as a child and that your weight is just perfect for you." He stopped when he noticed the glimmer of tears in her eyes. "Why are you crying?" He asked gently, in fear and worry that if she did burst into tears, she wouldn't be able to answer him.

It surprised her when he got up and sat on the edge of the bed to begin wiping her tears away with the pads of his thumbs. His hands were very gentle and strong and lean, just like the rest of him. It was so strange, how changed he was, how changed he had become over the weeks aboard ship toward her.

"Why are you doing this?" Elle suddenly cried when she could no longer stand by and just stare into his large golden eyes; they were doing odd things to her thinking processes.

This conversation was making very little sense to him and was beginning to worry him. Elle never acted like this that he knew, and he had never seen her cry before. Was he to blame? "What am I doing to upset you?"

"You're… being nice. You've never been nice to me before all this happened."

"Would you rather me go back to being rotten?" The big warrior joked in an unusually low voice, causing it to gain a new huskiness.

"'M not sure. I don't know how to deal with you when you're like this and I just…" She averted her face from his view, "I don't know…"

Silence enclosed them in a cocoon for many minutes, neither able to meet the other's eyes.

End Ch 3

I apologize on how long it took this to come out and for the paltry length of this chapter. More will come, I assure you but I know not when. Please review this.