The woman's eyebrows shot up as her mouth fell open in disbelief. His words had had their desired effect.
Maybe that was too much, too soon, he thought. Oh well - too late now.
The man stepped carefully towards her, his keen senses gauging her response. The woman was scared, but she was also stunned. Good - that would give him time to get to her before she started screaming. And he knew she would. She sat very still, only her mouth moving as it tried to decide what it should say next.
This whole scene reminded him of his childhood, when he'd creep up on butterflies as they perched atop tall sunflower plants waving in the breeze. One false move, and the butterfly would take off, fluttering madly in the summer wind. If not for the seriousness of his present situation, it would almost be funny. He couldn't afford to scare her too much, or she'd go fluttering away herself, alerting her staff to what he'd done before he had a chance to explain himself.
Surprisingly, she let him get about three feet from her before she shoved her chair back and stood up, her hand reaching to her side for a gun that (luckily for him) wasn't there.
"Stop right there," she said, her voice trembling. "I mean it."
Time to make his move, and hope to god she didn't bonk him with something. He stopped and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, then reached up and peeled the bandana off his head. A frown of confusion crossed her face. He dropped the bandana on the table, then reached up and very slowly removed his sunglasses, laying them on the table as well.
The woman's face went blank for a second; then her eyes flew open wide and began the frantic side-to-side movement that almost always preceded a good loud scream. He leaped forward, clamping one hand over her mouth and using the other to grab and hold her small wrists. Shoving her back against the wall, he held her there with his big body as she started to struggle, her scream muffled by his hand. He held on and let her fight, waiting for her to tire herself out. Finally, she relaxed and sagged against him helplessly, tears dripping onto the hand that covered the bottom half of her face. His eyes never left hers.
"Shhh, be still, be still..." he murmured. The sound of his voice set her off, and once again he endured a round of desperate bucking and writhing. He spoke again only when she was quiet.
"It's me. It's me. Shhh. Listen to me. Calm down, and I'll explain everything, okay?"
Her tears flowed more heavily, and she sobbed a little behind his big hand.
He tried again. "Look at me. Look at me." He shook her gently. She settled down a bit, but he wasn't out of the woods yet. If he let go now, she'd still scream and run. As far as she was concerned, she was looking at a bona fide ghost.
"Look closely," he continued, keeping his voice low and soothing. "There must be somethin' you can find that'll tell you it's really me. Look for it, c'mon." He gave her another shake.
Her eyes drifted away from his and ran hesitantly over his face, her body shaking uncontrollably against him.
"That's it, baby, c'mon," he said encouragingly. "You can find somethin', just keep lookin'."
She examined every inch of his face several times, finally coming to rest on a spot somewhere above his right eye.
"Find somethin'?" he asked her softly.
She nodded slowly, her eyes still fixed on whatever she'd discovered.
"Okay. If I let go of your mouth, promise not to scream?"
She looked into his eyes and hesitated, then nodded again.
"Good. Now I'm gonna let go, and you're gonna tell me what you see."
Another shaky nod.
Slowly, he eased the pressure on her mouth, then took his hand down. "Well?"
She swallowed and cleared her throat. "Um..." was all she could manage.
"C'mon, tell me. What d'you see?"
She swallowed hard again and opened her mouth. "Birthmark," she said in a croaky whisper.
"Where?"
She leaned her head forward and aimed her eyes at the spot she'd been staring at earlier. "There," she croaked weakly, her voice threatening to give out. "Um..." She sniffed and cleared her throat again. "Brown spot, just inside your hairline."
He nodded approvingly. "Good, good. Now, if I let go of your hands, will you stay put?"
"Yeah," she sniffled.
"Okay," he said warningly. "But if you try to run, I'll have to hold you down again."
"I won't."
He released her wrists, and she rubbed them where he'd been squeezing. Just to be safe, he placed his hands on the wall on either side of her in case she decided to run.
"Did I hurt you?" he asked softly.
"A little." She rubbed some more, then stopped and looked up at him. "They told me you were dead."
"I know."
A little sob escaped her. "But why? Why would they do that?"
"They had to." He heaved a big sigh and leaned his forehead against hers. "I wanna tell you everything, but I can't do it here. Where's your room?"
"Upstairs."
"Can we get up there without being seen?"
"Yeah, if we take the back way from my office." She sniffed again and wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand.
"Which way?"
She raised one hand and pointed shakily to her left.
"Let's go." He took her hand and pulled her away from the wall. She followed hesitantly, cutting her eyes nervously in the direction of the dining room, where Nina and Perry were still busy readying breakfast for the workers. He stopped and turned to face her, holding her by the shoulders.
"Please don't." She flinched when he ran his hand over her hair. "Don't call 'em. Not without givin' me a chance to explain." Without warning, he cupped the back of her head and pulled her face towards him, kissing her firmly. His heart leaped when he felt her melt against him, her lips open and mold themselves to his. When he pulled back, her eyes were full of light.
"You remember *that*, dontcha?" he smiled.
She smiled weakly and nodded. Looked like she was starting to believe him. He let her go and took her hand again. "You lead the way."
Drawing him carefully towards the hallway, she leaned out to check for people, then pulled him down it and to her office in the back, where she'd picked up her portable computer earlier. They crossed the room to a door in the corner, which opened to reveal a narrow stone staircase. The door at the top opened onto a spacious upstairs balcony from which they could look straight down to the first floor. She tugged him along to a door at the far end, at the front of the house, and led him into her room.
He closed the door behind them and let go of her hand. She circled the large room a few times, her arms crossed protectively over her chest, looking at the floor. He let her. There was a lot to deal with here, and she needed to collect her thoughts.
Finally, she came to a stop, her arms still wrapped protectively around herself. She looked him up and down several times, taking in every detail, then sat down heavily on the end of her bed.
"It really is you, isn't it." Her words were a statement, not a question.
"Yeah, it's really me."
He waited as she nodded and looked back down at the floor. He wanted to go to her, wanted it badly, but right now he had to wait. She had to do the reaching out on her own. If he pushed her too far too soon, they didn't stand a chance.
A long moment dragged by as she sat there silently, staring at her boots. He could only imagine what was going through her mind right now. Maybe she thought he'd betrayed her somehow. Maybe she thought he was an imposter after her money. Whatever the case, he'd know in a few minutes - but the wait was killing him. It hurt almost as badly as watching on a grainy monitor as she went nuts, pounding the walls of the visitor's reception room when the detached voices on the speaker told her he was dead. Killed while trying to escape, they said.
Exactly as he'd asked them to.
One hour after three guards dragged her weeping out the front of the building, he allowed himself to be led in restraints out the back and onto a military transport - and that was the last he'd seen of any civilized world until arriving on New Mecca three weeks ago.
He gritted his teeth and forced himself back into the present, made himself focus on the woman in front of him. She was still looking at the floor, but her shoulders had started shaking. One of her hands came up and covered her mouth as her weeping grew more pronounced. His hands balled into fists at his sides.
Wait for her, wait for her, he warned himself. You've waited four years, you can wait a few more minutes. Don't blow this, you asshole.
At last, she broke down. Her overwrought heart and mind, unable to process what she saw before her, simply gave out and sent her sliding off the edge of the bed and onto her knees, where she crumpled into a tiny ball on the floor. Her sobs raged through her like a storm, lifting her body up and throwing it down again as her hands grasped blindly at the bare stone.
It was too much for him. He gave in and went to her, falling to his knees and gathering her up as he would a child, rocking wordlessly back and forth as she wept into his massive chest. She clutched and twisted handfuls of his shirt as years of pain, rage and desolation poured out of her. It was a good long while before she cried herself out and lay quietly against him, her face buried in his shirt as she glutted herself on his warmth like a starving person. He was hungry, too; he couldn't get enough of the smell of her hair, the feel of her breath on him, her weight draped over his lap. His fingers found and traced the single silky braid that hung down her back.
Really here, really here, he told himself over and over as he rocked her gently. She's really here, and I'm really touching her...
He closed his eyes and remembered his fingertips resting on glass, following her image around the monitor screen as she darted here and there in the small metal room, beating the walls and screaming his name repeatedly. Her voice came to him over speakers in the walls of the monitoring station. They'd allowed him there as part of their agreement - he had to make sure they really told her. They did. Her tortured screams had echoed in his head ever since, waking him in the night, haunting every step he took.
And now he held this broken woman, knowing he was the only one who could put her back together.
She's not the only one who's broken, he reminded himself.
The sound of her voice pulled him out of his memories. He stopped rocking and let the joy wash over him like a warm ocean wave as he heard, for the first time in four years, his name on her lips.
"Riddick."