YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

An Irritated Phoenix

When Kel came to, she was sprawled face down on the ground. Her first instinct was to jerk herself upwards, but when she attempted to do so, every muscle protested violently. Her memory trickled back, and she flushed with embarrassment that she had fainted.

Then she remembered the reason behind her fainting, and grew a little worried. The place she was sitting in showed no sign of life. There was no sign of a set-up campsite in front of her, and both Neal and Byrn were nowhere to be seen.

Was she in the Realms of the Dead?

Kel tried to sit up again, and once again failed. The skin felt tight around her back, and at her movements, her back awakened with a sharp, throbbing pain. Her actions had also joggled her left arm, and it too began to burn.

This can't be the Realms of the Dead, she thought. I wouldn't hurt this much if I were dead!

Finally, on her third try, she managed to sit upright. Her back and arm wound pulled, and she winced, feeling wetness trickle down her arm. Having such a large cut made it hard for her to move. She reached her good right arm back, and felt that her clothes were crusty with dried blood. Her breastband was sliced into two pieces, but it was stuck to her body with blood. Kel looked down and saw that the gore from her injuries had soaked across into the front of her tunic. She grimaced.

"Hullo," a familiar voice called cheerfully. Kel looked up to see Neal leading their horses through a gap in the trees. "I'm glad to see you're up and running!"

"Why did you leave me all alone?!" Kel demanded through the pain. "I could have been killed by bandits!"

"Kel, I've been gone for about three minutes. I was taking our horses to water." He pulled back the brush from where he was standing, showing a clear view of a classic babbling brook.

"Well, then, why didn't you leave me some sort of sign? Some way to know that I wasn't alone in these woods? You didn't even set up camp, for Mithros' sake!"

Neal grinned, amused. "Turn around."

Kel winced as she spun slowly on the moss-covered floor. Right behind her was a fully prepared camp, complete with two tents and two cropped circles where the horses had been eating.

She made a sheepish face, and Neal strolled past her into the camp. Kel tried to get up, only to be stopped by the pain in her back. She groaned loudly and flopped belly-down on the ground.

"I give up!" she shouted, exasperated with the way her body was behaving. "I'm staying here!"

"You can't get up? Why?" Kel noted bemusedly that Neal sounded truly worried.

"My back hurts too much," she said, making a face and looking up at him while trying to mask her pain.

To her amazement, Neal frowned, troubled. "That is not good." He strode over to her after picketing the horses. "It looked like your wound wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it seems to be as bad as I had hoped it wouldn't be," he told her, laying down in front of her and facing her, his face less than a foot away from her own.

Kel blinked. "That made absolutely no sense at all. Why don't you try again?"

Neal sighed. "As you know, after we dispatched those bandits, you fainted." Kel blushed, than scowled. She was not happy with the amount of time she had been blushing since she came to. Neal continued. "At that time, I just wanted to get as far away from that area as possible, so I let the horses run as fast as they could in any direction, as long as it was away from the bandits. In the meantime, I was trying to heal you. But because of the fact that I was A: riding a horse, B: a little preoccupied with the chances of attack, and C: extremely tired, I was only able to stop the bleeding. I also was only able to see the wound through the gore on your shirt, which didn't make it any easier," he said, gesturing towards her blood-sodden clothes.

"But you're hurt, too! Why didn't you heal yourself?"

"I was more worried about you. You didn't look good, and you had lost so much blood that you looked halfway to invisible," he told her with a rueful smile.

"Maybe so, but this is a nasty little cut. You need to do something about it." She reached her right hand up and ran a finger down the side of his face, an inch behind the actual cut. She looked at him, at his face so close to her own just then, and saw that he was watching her intently, a look she didn't recognize in his bright green eyes. A pleasant shiver ran down her backbone. Kel's finger reached his chin and she drew it away from his face.

Neal blinked, then continued. "We came to this here clearing, and I had to put you down on the ground in order to go about my business, namely setting up camp. And I was hoping that it wasn't a bad wound, but now I'm suspecting it is, which means I have to heal you again.

"Well, get on with it!" Kel said. She was in unexplainedly good spirits for someone who couldn't get off the ground.

"Hmmm," Neal said, preoccupied. He was frowning at her back. Then he bit his lip. "Um," he said.

"What?"

"It would probably help if I could see the wound, and I realize that you may not want to do it, but it would be best, and the fastest way to do it, and —"

"Neal," Kel interrupted him, gritting her teeth impatiently as her back throbbed. "Just hurry up and say what you're trying to say, because I'm in some serious pain."

"I need you to take off your shirt," he blurted.

"Fine," she said, making a face. "It's really not that big of a deal. But I can't do it."

"Why not?"

"I can't move," she reminded him.

"Right. Um."

"What now?"

"So you want me to take off your shirt?"

"Yes, please," Kel said impatiently, wishing he could just get on with it and fix her back. She was getting tired of laying on the ground.

For some reason, that comment made him blush. She glanced up in time to catch it. The strange look was in his eyes again.

"Okay," he said, brushing hair from his eyes. "Make yourself comfortable, because I'm going to put you to sleep. It's easier to work that way."

Kel arranged herself, than told him, "Okay, I'm ready."

Gentle fingers peeled the torn edges of her shirt from her back, exposing it to open air and making the throbbing even sharper. Kel winced but didn't cry out, even when he pulled away the fabric that had been stuck in the wound. She felt him place his palms on her back, and coolness spread from his hands up her spine and into her head. She yawned once, twice, and then she knew no more.

***

When she woke up, the throbbing in her back was gone, and there was only a dull ache remaining in her arm. She yawned widely, then shook her head to clear it. She was in a tent, and the small amount of light coming in through the fabric told her that it was sometime during the night. She realized she was still wearing her blood-soaked clothes and made a face.

She sat up easily. Gathering a fresh set of clothes from saddlebags stowed conveniently beside her, she woke up Byrn, perched on a small L-shaped stick stuck into the ground.

"And where have you been all day, hmm?" Kel asked the phoenix good-naturedly. The immortal burbled sleepily before ruffling her feathers and closing her eyes again.

Kel opened the door to the tent, letting in the cool night air. She left the tent, wide awake, and headed to the stream. Splashing quietly, she rinsed herself of the remainder of their bloody battle. The clothes she placed in a cloth bag. They were ruined beyond repair.

She headed the few yards back to their camp after dressing quickly in her clean garments. She moved as quietly as a cat. As she came into the clearing, she saw a steady glow coming from Neal's tent. She paused.

Tossing her stuff by the open door of her tent, she walked to the closed door of Neal's. "Hello?" she called softly.

The flap was immediately pulled backward, and Neal frowned at her. "You are supposed to be sleeping," he told her.

She shrugged. "Oh, well. Can I come in?"

"Actually, I was just going out. It's getting stuffy in here."

"Oh," Kel said, taken aback.

"But," he continued, "I will gladly continue this oh-so-interesting conversation with you outside."

Kel waited for him, and they walked slowly over to an old oak tree. Neal leaned up against the roots with a sigh and motioned for Kel to sit next to him. She sat, propping herself up against the rough bark. She was aware of the closeness of his body to hers, and how her upper right arm was pressed against his.

"Too bad the branches are here," Neal remarked softly. "Otherwise we'd be able to see the stars." Kel nodded agreement, her head whirling with other thoughts.

They talked for rather long stretch of time; a soft, easy conversation of the kind often found between good friends. Any silences that occurred were companionable, and both of them were comfortable in the others company. After a while words trailed off, and they sat in silence for a few minutes, contemplating their own thoughts.

"Do you miss him?" Neal asked abruptly.

"Miss who?" Kel said, confused.

After a short pause, Neal answered, "Cleon."

Kel thought, actually thought about it before answering. "Sometimes. But not often. He wasn't right for me." She looked at Neal. "Why? Do you miss Yuki?"

He stared off into the distance. "Not so much anymore." He turned his head and smiled at her. "She wasn't right for me either." They stared at each other.

Kel had to think of something to say. "That's . . . good," she said faintly, unable to look away. Neal reached over and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, then leaned over and kissed her, quickly — and then pulled away, as if he had done something wrong. When Kel didn't say anything, he lowered his lips to hers again.

His mouth was gentle and warm, and she knew that this was right. Her hands, as if detached from her mind, rose to the back of his neck and played with the hair at the nape of his neck. The palm of his hand moved to her cheek, and he held her as they kissed.

He backed away again, looking into her face to see her reaction. "Um . . . " he started, suddenly unsure.

Kel smiled. "Not so much, for you, with the talking," she said, and pulled him back to her. Heat raced through her body as his lips met hers, and she shivered delightfully, wrapping both arms around his neck even as he drew her closer.

They kissed with a passion created by years of uncertainty and not knowing what the other was thinking. Kel lost track of time, only knowing that she would be content to be in his arms for the rest of time. Without breaking their kiss, Neal he picked her up gently and carried her into her tent. A few minutes later, Byrn flew sulkily out of the tent, unable to sleep any longer.

Again, YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.