*!*!*!*HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL*!*!*!*

Before we get into this chapter, I just wanted to address an anon review. You mentioned that if Geralt couldn't bring Ciri with him, you didn't see him going with Hermione back to her reality. If this were when Ciri was still young and still vulnerable on her own, I would completely agree. However, I established in Chapter One that this story is set in a later timeframe. Ciri—grown and capable and no longer in need of a protector as she set to rights the overturned empire of Nilfgaard while restoring a gentler, renewed queendom of Cintra is the narration from Geralt's side of the story at that point.

**As of the posting of this chapter, I have not yet watched season 2 (not beyond the point in episode one when Geralt makes the Lord Bad Breath quip [because interruptions]), so I kindly ask that no one make references to events therein in your reviews that might spoil it, thank you**


Chapter Eight

His gaze swept the landscape before him. They'd been here—there were clear signs. The still-smoking pile of overturned sand where there'd been a fire. Footprints in the ashy earth. Places where it looked like a few of them had bedded down.

But they were gone.

Shoulders slumping, he moved to sheath his sword. Until he sensed movement behind him. Weapon at the ready, he swiveled in place.

The spark of illumination was enough to tell him immediately the interloper's identity. Gritting his teeth, he did sheath his sword then. "I thought you agreed to stay put!"

Hermione nodded, proud of herself that she'd not started at his aggressive motion a heartbeat earlier. "And I did. Never said how long for though, now did I?"

Those golden eyes closed as he swallowed down a sound of aggravation. Yes, he was going to have to remember to watch out for word games with this one. Crafty little thing. "Did you give those you kept company with back home this much trouble?"

She shrugged, once more nodding. "Generally. But it was usually because I knew better than whatever the plan was, yet no one would listen to me."

He merely scowled at her.

After a moment of bearing his notably displeased scrutiny, she held up her free hand as she said, "To be fair, earlier you told me never to leave your side, then you told me to stay in the tent, which was obviously not at your side. It was… very confusing!"

Geralt's scowl deepened. Clearly, he recognized that she had not been confused by the differing orders in the least.

She returned his unhappy expression for a moment before she uttered a scoffing sound and rolled her eyes. "Fine. I was worried, okay?"

His features fell slack and his brows pinched together. "Whatever for?" After he asked, he noticed she seemed to be alone and could not help that his gaze flicked about beyond her.

"If you're looking for Romi, he's back in the tent, asleep."

"Huh. Here I thought we'd have to nail his paws to the ground to keep him from following you everywhere."

Hermione's jaw dropped and a horrified noise escaped her throat.

With a sigh, the witcher shook his head. "I would not actually do that."

"I should've guessed you're not much of an animal person," she responded, shaking her head right back at him. "But then I suppose the feeling's mutual, as he doesn't seem to like you very much, either. I think he understood I was going after you and had no interest in helping me save your hide."

Geralt merely stared at her for several long, awkwardly silent seconds before he said haltingly, "You were going to save me?"

This time she actively refrained from rolling her eyes. "You don't have to sound so … dubious about it. Yes, I get it." She waved her hands in the air as she went on, "You're a witcher, you fight 'evil monster things!' And though you appear awfully capable, I knew there were several of them and only one of you. I've never seen you in combat, so I had no way of knowing if being outnumbered would prove a problem for you."

"Oh, so you were worried for me." He stated it plainly, and she'd said nearly as much, but the way one brow inched fractionally upward as he spoke, the ever so slightly smug tone in that deep voice of his ….

A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth. "You just think you're so cute."

The look of pure confusion that crossed his face at her words was in danger of causing her to burst out laughing. "I don't believe that is a term anyone has ever thought to apply to me."

Her lips folding inward, she nodded. Of course, she could imagine many terms applying to him. In a different setting, under different circumstances, she could imagine—

"All right. I was worried for you, yes, but … well, what would I do were you to be killed? Wander 'round this world on my own with no idea about anything to do with this place or the people here?" Hermione propped a fist on her hip. "It would be strategically disadvantageous to me if you were to die. Don't take it as anything more than that."

Pursing his lips, he nodded. And then simply waited.

It wasn't long before the witch was fidgeting in place. There really wasn't any reason to not be honest with him, she supposed.

Her shoulders drooping, she let out a deep breath. "Just … the way you were acting, the things you said when you found out about my—my circumstances. It's not like it didn't occur to me that I could be in danger, it's been on my mind since I got here, but you are very obviously not someone easily shaken and you were shaken. Not because of me, for me, I recognize that."

After a moment of weighing her words, Geralt nodded. From what little he knew of her, from what little she'd told him of her history, he was certain she was quite accustomed to danger, even to having her life in jeopardy.

But with the circumstances that had brought them together, he couldn't deny a certainty that he was meant to protect her.

"This is a very unusual situation," he conceded, "and trust me when I say I speak from experience on such matters. That's why when I give you an order, you will follow it."

Her spine pulled straight nearly on reflex at his choice of words. "Follow orders?"

Now it was Geralt's turn to roll his eyes, and he did, so hard his lids fluttered. "It is for your own safety."

"I don't bloody well need to be ordered about, told to stay put, or left behind to accomplish that!"

The sharpness of her suddenly raised voice agitated him. Setting his jaw, he ground out the question from between clenched teeth, "Then tell me, what do you believe would accomplish the task?" He thought he might find her burst of temper amusing—she would probably get on quite well with Ciri and Yen, should their paths ever cross—were she not currently stoking his ire.

She flinched at his tone, her hands balling into fists at her side, the knuckles of her wand hand drained of color as they gripped her weapon tighter. "I need to be treated as an equal! As a partner, kept in the bloody loop, not left in a tent to sit on my hands!"

For a strained moment, they only glared at each other.

Until she forced a deep breath and shook her head. Pragmatism dictated that one of them had to back down or they'd never get anywhere, and she was nothing if not pragmatic.

"Please," she started, her voice calm, a whisper against the still, silent night air of the ashlands. "I can't simply be left behind while you run off facing whatever danger there might be alone. It's not in my nature. And not to mention what if something happened and you didn't make it back?"

The anger fled him at her question, at the note of concern in her voice. This was all so very odd, and he was quite aware that coming from him, that was saying much.

His posture rigid as it was, the tension draining from him in that moment was a visible change. "You'd survive." Lower lip puckering to make for a pensive expression, he gave a minute shake of his head. "You would go on and find your way back where you belong. With or without my aid."

Brow furrowing, Hermione tried to ignore how her stomach tied itself in knots at the way he was talking. At the way he was looking at her. And she definitely ignored how her heart seemed to skip a beat. "You really believe that?"

Those golden eyes drifted closed and he sighed before opening them again, his gaze still on hers. "I think what I believe and what you're capable of are two different things."

Was that a compliment? She pressed her lips together to keep from smiling at the notion. "But you believe that no matter my capabilities, you're still supposed to be with me to assure I get back where I belong?"

"It's my understanding that is how fate works." Curiosity tinting his expression, he shook his head as he pivoted on his heel to look at the recently-vacated campsite. "At the moment, however, I think we had better focus on how it is they managed to leave so quickly."

She nodded, taking the opportunity to examine the area more fully for herself, now that she could drag her attention away from him. "I don't understand it, either. There wasn't that much time between when I saw them and you coming here. Unless …."

He titled his head in her direction, but his gaze never left the disturbed, ashy earth before them. "Unless they were somehow alerted to a potential threat."

"Magic, maybe?" she asked, though she sounded doubtful.

"Possible." Geralt knelt by the overturned firepit. He touched the ruined soil. It was still warm, but of course it was. Even with their … disruption when she'd tried to wake him, she was right. Not much time could've elapsed between these two events. "We don't know who they work for. We may be dealing with an alchemist, a magic user…. Either would possibly be able to create something capable of acting as an alarm."

"They weren't alerted to me when I first happened upon them," she pointed out, stepping up beside him as he rose to his full height.

Geralt waited for her to meet his eyes before he said, "At the time, you didn't pose a threat. That only came later, I assume, after they'd proved themselves a danger to you?"

He was right, she thought. She hadn't approached them with any sort of dangerous intent, whereas Geralt of Rivia by all accounts appeared the very embodiment of the term. Dangerous intent in living, breathing form.

Hermione understood quite clearly how lucky she was that he was on her side. Though … "This might just be my lack of experience with mercenaries, but they didn't seem like a particularly bright bunch. More the type to attack a threat, believing themselves strong enough to handle whatever it was than flee from it."

Eyes narrowing, he looked out into the distance. There was nothing out there that he could see, he wasn't certain if it was the dark of night, of if the hilly landscape gave the group the inadvertent advantage of hiding their movements. "Unless they're acting under orders from their mysterious employer."

"Great," she said, struggling to fight off a yawn, her interrupted sleep starting to catch up with her now that everything was settled for the time being. "Only thing worse than a stupid enemy who attacks indiscriminately is a stupid enemy who's perfectly aware they need someone else to do their thinking for them."

Geralt breathed a snicker. "Never were truer words spoken. We should head back now. You need your rest."

Nodding, Hermione turned and started back for their tent. She kept her grousing to herself about how he deliberately insinuated that he didn't also need rest.


She knew he wasn't sleeping. She wasn't certain how, exactly, simply a gut feeling. Of course, she wasn't sleeping either, but she imagined that was for a very different reason.

Hermione turned on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. It wasn't how close they'd come to possibly catching her would-be kidnappers. No, she chewed at her lower lip.

God she was exhausted; why couldn't she sleep?

It was that they'd come close to finding some link to what was going on out here, and wasn't that Geralt's real purpose for choosing to travel with her in the first place? What if finding that answer were enough for him? What if after finding that, it turned out to have nothing to do with her arrival here in his world and that was enough for him to decide he wasn't meant to help her after all?

And then there was the memory, once more, of how shaken he'd been back in the village after he'd realized how very much she didn't belong here. After she'd told him where she was from.

Just what, exactly, did he think would become of her if someone else were to learn that truth?

She could recall so very clearly the look in those golden eyes as he'd spoken his warnings. If she focused enough, she could still feel the way his fingers gripped her arms. Firm, but not painfully tight. Secure.

Letting her head loll left against her pillow, she looked over at him. Geralt of Rivia lay on his side, eyes closed as he tried to let himself fall asleep. Or, possibly, as he pretended to slumber for her sake.

To let her think things were calm enough that she could—and should—let herself fall asleep, too.

Her eyes drifted closed a moment as she cursed her own thoughts for what she was thinking. Before she could really tell herself not to, however, she was climbing to her feet as quietly as she could and crossing the floor.

Geralt had heard her movements, all of her restless tossing and turning. He'd sensed her drawing closer but had no idea what she was doing until he felt his bed shift beneath her weight as she sat down.

Opening his eyes, he only watched her as she lay down on her side and scooted closer. Her back to his chest, she took his arm and draped it over her.

"Please," she said, seemingly aware that he was about to speak—whether to question her or send her back to her own side of the tent, she had no idea, regardless, she wasn't about to listen. Her voice was small, low, barely audible against the crackling of the fire. For an amused moment, he thought Romi's little snarling snores might be louder.

He was aware of her fidgeting slightly in that self-imposed embrace. Clutching thoughtlessly at her own wolf pendant beneath the weight of his arm, he thought.

"Look …." The sound of her swallowing hard felt overly loud just then. "I'm a bit like you. I'm not one easily shaken. But I am now, by everything that's going on." Her small, low voice tumbled out heavy with reluctance as she tacked on, "I'm … I'm scared, so just please let me stay here like this."

Geralt lifted his head from his pillow just enough to look down into her face a moment, one brow arched. "Just for tonight?"

When she nodded, he lay his head back down. "I think so," she said, her eyes at last falling closed.

Letting his own eyes shut, he ignored the way she reflexively snuggled back against him tighter still. "And should you get scared again another night?"

The witch answered in a half-slurred spill of words as the soft black of sleep finally seemed to be overtaking her, "Let's just cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?"

Holding in a chuckle, he followed her lead, allowing himself to drift off.