Disclaimer: Henry, Eileen and the rest are completely and utterly not mine. They're Konami's. I'm just taking them out of the drawer for an outing.
"Guess I'm going to have to find another place to live, huh?"
Eileen smiled up at her visitor. Henry stood awkwardly, as if about to turn tail and flee. But she didn't miss the small smile that crossed his lips.
She buried her nose in the flowers that he'd brought her, and inhaled deeply. The scent was fresh and clean, so different from the smell of...
She reached for the call button by her bed. Henry's eyes followed her movement.
"Miss Galvin?"
"Nurse Rachel, I'm sorry to bother you with this..." Eileen held up the flowers. "Do you have a vase for these?"
The nurse laughed. "No problem. We've got more than I can count. Be right back."
As the door closed behind her, Henry turned to Eileen with a slight frown.
"I could have gotten that for you. No need to bother the nurse."
Eileen smiled at him.
"It's OK. She's great, she doesn't mind. Plus, it will give her something to talk about with the other nurses on duty until they have to check on me again. Guess I'll be grilled about you after you leave."
Henry's eyebrow went up. Eileen laughed.
"Don't worry. I wouldn't really know what to tell her." She nodded at the single chair in the room. "Anyway, I wanted to keep you here with me."
Henry's look changed to a slight puzzlement, and he sat, elbows on knees, looking absently at a point a few inches south of her chin.
She'd never been this forward with a guy before...what had gotten into her? Maybe being protected from certain death for several hours by a man who'd faced down indescribable horrors to save her life. That was new.
"Um, up here," she said gently.
His eyes jerked upward. "I...uh...I wasn't..."
"I know."
A moment.
"What happened to..."
"What happened to what?" She immediately regretted teasing him. He squirmed.
"Um...you look much better."
"Well, either this place works miracles, or it all went away after...afterward. They're just keeping me here for observation. I should be able to leave later today."
He nodded, then a little more silence. She noticed a slight bulk on his arm, under his shirt. A bandage?
"You're not in great shape either," she said.
He looked down at the arm. "Nothing serious."
Nurse Rachel came back with the flowers in a cut-glass vase. She walked over to the window and placed them on the sill. She looked from Eileen to Henry and back again, smiled at Eileen, and left.
"What about you?" Eileen asked.
"What?"
"You're going to have to move, too, right?"
Henry sat up and scratched his head. "Yeah, I guess so," he said. "The place is probably OK now, but I don't think I'm going to stay."
She nodded. "Me neither. I liked it, but ... Know of any apartments around here?"
"A few decent ones."
"You mean, that aren't haunted and full of two-headed babies and dead serial killers?"
"That's a minimum requirement."
Eileen laughed, and Henry gave a shy grin.
You know, Eileen thought, I could get to like this guy.
Hell, I already like him.
"Tell you what," she said to him. "Later today, after I get out of here, let's go get our stuff and get a hotel room."
His eyes opened very wide. Oh...
"No, uh, not like that," she stammered. "It's just that...well, I don't know about you, but I don't have anywhere else to go. We're both going to have to find new apartments."
Henry nodded. "I don't have a lot of stuff...just a few personal things and my photographs."
"Same here," Eileen replied. "It won't take me long to pack. I should be able to fit most of it into my car."
"I have a truck with a cap," Henry added. "Should be enough space for both of us."
"Good!" Eileen smiled. Some good, honest, physical packing was oddly appealing.
Henry stared out of the window.
It felt good to have something to look forward to. She remembered the hours of limping around in those damn heels, cold and hurt, trying to move as fast as she could so she didn't slow down Henry too much, her back feeling like it was full of worms crawling under her skin, while Henry shot and slashed and bashed and led her past all of it. She remembered him keeping her behind him as he battled for their lives every foot of the way, then fighting like a madman as she felt herself pulled toward the spinning blades...
Eileen's hands lifted and reached toward him, and he stood and crossed the room. She grasped both of his hands.
"Henry," she started. "I..."
He waited.
"I don't know what to say, except...thank you."
She looked into his face. Green eyes, she noted. Soft and caring. She stopped short at the concern in his gaze. So that's what's been hiding under all that hair.
"My pleasure," he said simply.
When Henry returned some hours later, Eileen was sitting, looking out of her window. She smiled at him, and motioned him over.
"Henry..." she said, pointing out the window. "By the front. What's going on?"
"Hmph," he replied. "Damn reporters. They're at the apartment, too."
"They're here for us?"
Henry nodded.
"Guess an apartment building full of bloody monsters and hauntings is front-page news," Eileen said. "Even around here."
"I parked around the back," Henry said. "There's nobody there."
"I'm ready. Let's go."
They exited the room in silence. As they walked down the hall, her mind wandered. Finally. I'm out of there, in one piece. It's over.
She felt rested, relaxed, better than she'd felt in days, as if none of that had happened. But the presence of the man at her side reminded her that it hadn't all been a dream.
Finally...finally what? What happens now?
As she walked through the sliding glass doors, with Henry's flowers in her hand, a cool breeze raised goose flesh on her bare skin. Fall was on its way...and all she had on was her tank top and skirt. Damn. She really needed to bring along a jacket once in a while...
Before she could shiver, she felt something placed around her shoulders. She smiled thankfully at Henry, and automatically looked down. It was the same shirt that he'd been wearing during their trip through hell. She recognized the little pockets, and she smelled his scent on it.
"Sorry. It's all I had except for this," he said, looking down at his fresh T-shirt and jeans.
"It's OK. I'm lazy about my laundry too," she replied.
"I had a load running, but...there were problems."
"Heh. I bet."
He led her over to a big gray long-bed truck with an old metal cap on top.
"Here we are."
He reached in, threw some stuff into the back seat, and helped her into the passenger seat. As she fastened the seat belt, she saw that the interior was clean and tidy. Hmmm...not typical guy behavior. Why should I be surprised, she wondered, I barely know this guy...good to see that he takes care of things, though.
I shouldn't be surprised at all...he took care of me. And I do know him, in a way.
Henry got in on the driver's side, and the truck roared into life.
"Nice truck," she smiled at him.
"It runs," he replied. He shifted gears, and they were off.
The hospital was about fifteen minutes' drive from South Ashfield Heights. They rolled along in companionable silence for a few minutes. Then Henry spoke.
"I've finished packing my stuff...it's all in my apartment. I've also gotten us a couple of rooms at the motor inn down the road."
"Sounds good," she replied. "I hate to ask, but would you mind..."
He nodded. "We should be able to get you packed. I have some boxes ready."
A pause.
"There are more reporters at the apartment. We can't avoid them there."
"I know. Damn place only has one exit."
"The police are there, too. They want to ask you some questions."
"I guess I don't have much choice."
"No," Henry replied, as the truck turned a corner. "I asked if it was really necessary, but they said they want to hear your side of the story. I've already told them everything. They insisted."
"Well, I guess it was unavoidable," Eileen said. "I'll just get it over with, and we can get the hell out of there."
A few moments.
"What do you do, anyway?" Eileen asked.
"I...uh...I'm a freelance photographer," he said.
"What do you photograph?"
"Buildings, scenery...that sort of thing."
"Would you show me some of your pictures sometime?"
He turned to look at her for a moment, then back to the road. "Yeah, OK." He smiled a little. "What do you do?"
"I'm kinda between jobs these days," Eileen said. "I have my degree in ancient European languages, and I'm hoping to teach someday, but for now I'm trying to save up for grad school."
Henry nodded. "That's why you could read that writing by the orphanage?"
Eileen just stared at him, amazed that he could bring up their...experience so casually. She'd expected him to clam up and dance around it...but there it was.
"Uh...yeah. Actually, I wish I could have written it down...it was a script that I hadn't seen before, but it had enough similarities to a few things I do know that it wasn't hard for me to read."
Henry smiled. "That was pretty impressive."
"Impressive? Hey, you're the one who saved both our skins. You got me out of that place. All I could do was just hobble around behind you and swat at things." She looked out of the window. "I felt so useless."
"You weren't."
"Well, I felt like it."
They drove the last few minutes in silence.