Everyone should check out The Writer you Fools' challenge in my forum. It's a good one, I swear. For every pairing, every whatever. You might find it most um…challenging. Heh.

Dedicated to: honestly, anyone who's stuck around long enough to see this chapter come to actually exist! Thank you so much and your reviews definitely helped me be motivated to finally get this out…goodness. I hope not a long wait like last time.

Without You

Chapter 2: In which you heal me...sort of

I hate to lose.

No, I mean it. I really hate to lose. Loathe might be a better word.

Curse myself for only being able to stand there as she watched me with those calculated irises of hers, like glass marbles the color of night. Granted, it was by such a marginal amount, the instructors might not even take it into account, as I was still reputably his Excellency's favorite—something I had yet to understand completely. However marginal it might have been was greatly accentuated by the fact that I have always clung wildly to the things I thought I could always do best, no matter what.

Fighting was one of them.

It was the rush that came on the heels of the fear, the slice of a blade that grazed my outer layer to remind me it could be slicing through my skin in the next instant. It came from the way my pulse turned into a war drum's beat when I scrimmaged in the machines—the base's staff called them iron men.

That was a suitable enough name. They vaguely resembled men as each machine had a head, four limbs and a central body, but made of all that metal and made to be a war weapon at that, it was no wonder 'iron men' came off as a little odd at first. It was as if it were reduced to a game (your iron men versus my lava army or the like) but after a couple practice rounds it was back to being a strange reality of the oncoming war. Maybe after just one practice round...if you were smart.

Most people on base didn't have any qualms disclosing their feelings and thoughts on the war, on their positions, on why they fought. But I never took part—not that they would have wanted me to. I was a man apart, evidently, but that suited me fine. I didn't like crowds. But then she came along and my loner sensibilities went scarce.

"Need a hand?" she asked, not a trace of the smugness I could rarely keep from having in my own voice. I admit I'd gotten a little cocky over the years...a little more than a little.

"No," I said and pulled myself out of the cockpit with much difficulty, trying not to show just how much. In the last round, we'd collided in the machines and as they were gigantic suits—tall as buildings, some of them—it took a lot of power to both wield and endure the use. The collision had caused me to momentarily lose my grip, Raven being on the upper-hand, and I'd slipped, causing my shoulder to be painfully jarred against a hard edge of the cockpit's interior. Now as I pulled myself out, it sent a sharp throb and I must have winced...or something else.

"You're hurt." I was about to retort that no, I wasn't but something caught my attention there. Her tone...had it just sounded remotely worried...? For as long as I'd known her...not much over a month, but still...she'd never shone any emotion.

It was like emotion might kill her...not a flicker of a smile. I couldn't even imagine what a smile would look like on that unreadable face of hers.

Not that I wanted to...

"Come on," her voice broke into my internal monologue and I followed her wordlessly, still somewhat dumbstruck by her openness. Had I passed a test without knowing it? Was this a trick? Who did she think she was ordering me to 'follow' her?

My mind, if it could, would have proceeded to beat itself on the nearest hard surface.

Luckily my skull kept it from doing so.

"In here," she gestured and I found myself in a corridor I'd never been in before.

"Where are we?" I asked, feeling out of place.

"The women's quarters," she said and the insurmountable flat tone was back, cool and unfeeling as ever—not mean, but not quite normal. Most people couldn't help but show even an inch's worth of usual emotion. Raven was in a league all her own in that case. This 'worry' which I was sincerely beginning to think I'd made up in my head at this point, was the first sign of anything human in her since that fencing match. Even I had moments when the shield broke down and anger slipped through, or, more often, irritation it seemed.

"I shouldn't be here then," I said and she rolled her eyes at me. Well, I suppose if sarcasm was an 'emotion' she'd be full of it...just one emotion, but well...

"We have our own medical room since females like female assists when they get injured. It's an odd luxury but we might as well use it if we've got it. Yours is the generic med room and that will be packed with the rest of today's injuries," she explained as she walked away.

I stared. Clearly she meant for me to follow.

'...the rest of today's injuries'?

I scowled. It didn't hurt. I tested my shoulder, trying to roll it. A sharp flare of burning pain whipped through it and I hissed, hoping Raven had not heard me, so far ahead as she must be. Okay, maybe it did hurt...a little.

"Coming?" she called from down the hall. "That looked painful," she added and I felt like cursing again as I all but stumped down the corridor towards her and into a side room.

"This is all yours? How many women are there here?" I asked carelessly. Raven was getting something out of a cupboard.

"Not many," she said, answering me and not answering me...as usual. "Sit," she gestured to a chair she'd moved near the window. There was none of the florescent light that dominated most of the interior of the campus, but as she opened the Venetians with a flick of her wrist, natural sun streamed through. I sat. The sun felt nice...soothing even. I half suspected if I sat there long enough the sun would heal the injury for me. "Take off your shirt."

What?

"What?" I tried not to choke on my question.

"I need to check that shoulder and then, accordingly, wrap it so you don't do anything else to it," she said in such a tired fashion that most certainly translated into being irritated...I thought.

"You're not a medical assistant," I tried. "Are you?" I should be sure of the things I say.

"I have the training," she said evasively and then again, "Take off your shirt."

"I don't believe this," I muttered half to myself, half to her, but did so, holding my breath with the ache and sharp flares in my shoulder going crazy.

"Now stay still," she said and moved behind me.

I don't know if you've ever had a person you weren't certain hated your every bone just for being set right, or might actually like you.

But it's not comfortable.

Tension was inevitable.

"Relax," she said and I felt her fingers press against my skin. Her touch was strangely cool, not cold, but cool—just like her manner. I half expected her to just snap my whole shoulder off then and there but instead she began methodical circles, an odd sort of therapeutic massage that had my shoulder feeling a great deal better in just moments. And...something else. I felt like I actually was beginning to relax. I felt like...like this was nice.

"Ow! Geez!" It was then that she'd decided to test the movement of my shoulder and the throbbing returned tenfold. So much for relaxation. I all but glared at her as I turned my face to nearly come nose to nose with her. She'd been, I guessed, leaning down to examine the way the movement showed through my shoulder in the back.

This was, if anything, awkward.

"The rest will be very quick," she said simply, shedding the awkwardness like a cloak and had me bandaged in a couple deft minutes. I moved awkwardly but the pain was greatly lessened on a whole and that meant one thing.

"Thank you," I said to her back as she put the supplied back in the respective places. She paused, hand on the cupboard as she closed it shut.

"You're welcome boy wonder," she said and I thought I sensed a hint of a smile in her tone, but I couldn't' say because she had her back to me still, as if that was the only thing between her, me, and the truth she didn't want to tell just yet. Still...maybe she was smiling. She'd been kind enough to help me, to patch me up...and we'd been civil mostly. Maybe we were getting somewhere and I could stop falling asleep with her face in my dreams.

Maybe, I thought, feeling estranged by the very idea, I was making...a friend?

Friend was too much.

An ally?

Maybe, I thought with my own half smile as I discreetly exited the women's dormitories. Raven had said she needed to get something for her next class...or something, which sounded fair enough.

I didn't see her again for the rest of the week.

It's been a while. It's short but I hope it's okay. GLASS and HUSH soon. :D

Anyways, um, thoughts?

-Rei, back...she hopes. Haha. ;