--------------- Chapter 13 ---------------------
AN: I'm ignoring Understudy and everything after it because Nicki complicates things (and I haven't seen much beyond that), especially in view of keeping this as a sequel of The Beast and Catching Teardrops! Laurell K. Hamilton gets credit once again for inspiration, go out and buy Anita Blake Book 11 (Cerulean Sins) so she doesn't sue me.
Emma was frozen where she sat, worried that the slightest movement would stir her from this dream that she seemed to have fallen into. Shalimar dropped lightly onto the branch beside her.
"You're high up, I'm proud of you. What were you doing up here?"
"I was just thinking." She whispered, wondering if perhaps she had cracked. If Rogers had affected her more than she knew. "I was missing you." Clouds gathering unseen began to unload their heavy burden.
"I'm here now, no need to miss me anymore." Emma shuddered at the first drop of rain that hit her brow. "Come with me?" Shalimar asked. "I want to show you something." Shalimar took Emma's hand and in that touch it was as if the spell had been broken and realisation washed over her in one huge wave. She pulled Shalimar into a hug, regardless of the height at which they stood, tears washing freely down her face to mingle with the rain which was, by then, falling quite heavily. Shalimar pulled back and kissed her, softly, tenderly and full of longing.
"Do you trust me?" She asked quietly when Emma's tears had cleared.
"Of course." Shalimar grinned at Emma's heartfelt agreement and leant down, sweeping Emma off her feet and into her arms.
"Hold on tight." She murmured as she leapt from the branch, forcing Emma's heart into her throat for the seconds that seemed minutes as they fell. She held her breath as the earth rose to meet them but Shalimar seemed to slow as she neared the ground, leaving them to land as if they had only jumped from a small height.
Placed back on the ground Emma found herself led forward at a gentle run, Shalimar's hand on her elbow pulling her onwards. Slowing for a moment Shalimar turned to Emma with feral eyes. "Do you think you can follow me if I run?"
"Aren't we already running?"
"No, I want to run." She spoke the word as though it had an alternate meaning for her. As if it mean something more than what Emma could understand.
"I'll try." She offered. Shalimar grinned.
What she did next was completely unexpected. She disappeared.
Emma stopped and looked around her. There was no sign, no sight, no sound of her lover. Had it been a dream, a mirage? She felt tears gathering in her eyes again but before a drop could fall Shalimar was at her side again.
"That was too fast wasn't it." She laughed.
Emma was running. The hand in hers lead her, step by step at tremendous speed through woodland so thick she would never have thought to try to get through. The body in front of her seemed to have some power over the woodland because, as she stepped, the path seemed to open up before her, staying open only long enough for Emma to step through behind her before closing up and disappearing from sight. Rain stung her face as she ran into it, making her squint, but she didn't worry about not seeing her way. She felt like she was moving faster than she ever had before, but Shalimar didn't drag her so much as infuse her with energy of her own. She was out of breath when their run came to an end in front of a huge oak three, the rain making rat's tails of their hair and dripping from their clothes.
Shalimar led Emma around the tree's great trunk, too round for her to fit her arms around, to an opening at ground level revealing a hollow interior. Inside the rain did not reach, but it's echoing call as it hammered into the sides of the trees meant they had to shout to be heard by each other. Looking up Emma found that above her there was a platform of wooden planks built into the tree, easily accessible by a pattern of knots and holes in the side of the tree. Shalimar scaled to the platform with practised ease and Emma followed quickly behind.
Settling herself up against the wall of the strange room the platform formed, Emma let her feet dangle over the edge as she listened to the rainfall ease slightly. Curling up beside her, Shalimar lay her head in Emma's lap, sensing her need for a moment's quiet as the water dripped from their hair and clothes.
"What's bothering you Emma?" Shalimar broke the silence first, her voice quiet against the background noise of the rain hitting the leaves and trunk of the tree around them.
"Nothing." She replied automatically.
"Lair." That prompted a laugh. "What happened to the guys who attacked Sanctuary?" For a moment Emma's breath caught in her throat. What had Adam told her? Did she know? It only took her that moment that it was a separate question, that Shalimar wasn't going to press her about what was wrong. She didn't know how close she'd come to the true problem.
"Adam..." This had been what she had been afraid of. She couldn't lie to her. She could never lie to her. "I..." She sighed and closed her eyes. Composing herself she turned back to Shalimar, staring deep into her warm brown eyes, full of empathy and confusion. "There's something I wasn't to tell you, but it's hard. And I don't know how you'll react. Give me a minute?" Shalimar sat up, needing to be able to look at Emma properly.
"Sure, however long you need. I'll still be here." She offered, still frowning.
"Talk to me." Emma pleaded.
"What about?" Shalimar asked.
"Anything. How this tree got a tree house in it." She suggested. Shalimar thought for a moment, thinking about the story.
"Before Jesse arrived at Sanctuary I was the only one here and Adam pushed me really hard in training. Sometimes I just needed to escape and so I used to run into the forest just to get away. I found this tree one day when I got caught out in the rain, I wasn't ready to go back inside so I hid here for a while. There used to be a natural platform here, from where the tree had hollowed out oddly, and I found myself coming out here all the time. I stole food and kept it out here so I could stay out for days if I was in that kind of mood. This one time I was just about ready to do just that - I'd taken a blow to the head by a hologram and I was in a vile mood - and I mistimed the jump to get to the ledge because I used to jump instead of using the holds. I hit the platform harder than usual and it gave way. I broke my wrist when I fell and got a real telling off from Adam. I came out a few weeks later to mourn my lost hiding place and found this built." She tapped at the new platform. "I haven't been out here for a while. I haven't needed to hide for a while." She smiled softly as the frown slipped from Emma's face, if but for a moment.
"My powers have developed a lot more that I've admitted to you guys." Emma spoke quietly, the words almost hidden under the constant tirade of the rain. "Things are happening, and I'm not sure if I like what's happened. To tell the truth it scares me, what I can do now. I'm worried that if I ever got too powerful... that it would change me. That it would... change who I am, what my morals are. I've already changed a lot, I used to only use my powers when I had to, now I use them all the time, and I don't like it. It's like I'm loosing my reservations about touching other people's minds.
"I've always found ways to block people out, but I've always found it hard to do it completely. Some people's hate and fear and anger... it's just too hard to block out. It's too powerful in its own right for me to stop it. But I've found now that I can collect it, and expel it like some kind of weapon. Blow it out so that everyone around me feels what I feel, but magnified. And it makes me feel so good, because I'm getting rid of those emotions. But I hate it; I hate the way it feels, because I've seen what it does to the people who are on the receiving end."
"If it's a weapon then it's going to do damage, that's what it's for. "
"Not for Jesse. I never wanted to hurt Jesse." Emma's whisper was so quiet Shalimar almost didn't hear her, but she heard. Searching her memories for anything Jesse might have said, any change of behaviour. Coming up blank, something else occurred to her.
"That's not it is it? That's not the thing you're so afraid of."
"I made him forget it, Shal. I did it almost without thinking. I just didn't want to remember that, what I'd done, so he didn't. It was so easy.
"I don't want to turn in to someone who would change someone's memory without even thinking about it. Just because I feel like it. I don't want to be that person." Emma was almost shouting, her anger with herself echoing though the small space. Shalimar went quiet, thinking for a moment. "I don't want you to be worried that I might have made you forget something, something I'd said or done. I would hate that. More than anything else." Emma added, voice quieter now. "I don't want you to be scared of me."
"Answer me one thing." Shalimar asked, face serious.
"Anything."
"Why did you make Jesse forget?" Emma thought about the question.
"I didn't want him to live with the knowledge of what I feel. I was worried some of the emotions might be his own and he would recognise them."
"So you did it for him, not to hide yourself." Shalimar pushed.
"Of course."
"Then why would we ever be scared of you for that? You're protecting us from you, not protecting yourself from us." Shalimar smiled at the glimmer of hope in Emma's eyes. "Now lets get back to Sanctuary, I'm famished." She declared, lowering herself from the platform and helping Emma down behind her. "It's still raining, you ready to get wet again?" They laughed together as Shalimar took Emma's hand and lead her out again into the rain and Shalimar was relieved to hear the loose sound from her love.
They dashed through the rain as quickly as they would, slipping and sliding on the wet mud and slick grass. They were both laughing out loud as they reached the cover of the doorway and stood gasping for breath in dripping clothes.
Emma gripped Shalimar's arm as she slipped on muddy shoes and the wet floor and suddenly neither of them were laughing anymore. Emma pulled Shalimar closer, craving the contact. The stood silent for a moment before Emma leant down, brushing Shalimar's lips with her own. The heat seemed to flare in that touch, rising to consume both of them. It pulled them together hard until nothing else mattered but the other's touch.
Neither of them could say for sure how long they stood there, tight in each other's embrace, lips locked together in a kiss, but Adam had cleared his throat three times before Shalimar looked across at him. A dazed look crossed her face as Emma's attentions dropped to her neck, still not noting Adam's attempts to reach them. Seeming to finally realise whom it was who was watching she stepped away from Emma quickly, the heat tempered by another's presence. She called Emma's attention to their leader as he looked on.
"Adam," Emma choked out, looking up. "I didn't see you there."
"Hmm..." Was his only comment. "Shalimar, lab, now. Emma, go get dried off. I'll talk to you in a minute."
"Adam..." Shalimar started.
"No, Shalimar. We were worried. You've just woken from a coma and the first thing you do is disappear."
"Don't worry, Adam. Everyone's safe, I'm fine. In fact I feel better than I have for a long..." She frowned, as if considering what to say next. "For a..." Adam watched as she convulsed, folding in on herself to fall, unconscious into Emma's waiting arms.
"Damn you, Shalimar, you're going to be the death of me." Adam muttered under his breath as he checked Shalimar's vitals.
AN2: Wow, so near the end. I'm going to miss this fic...
