Bunny.

'Raffles, just hear me out—'

It was the same argument, for the tenth, twentieth, hundredth time. It had been three days since my injury and the events which had precipitated it, and three days of Raffles and I going back and forth, and back and forth, over what, if anything, needed to be done about our increasingly dangerous situation.

It would be fair to say that we were not seeing eye to eye.

'I don't need to hear you, Bunny. I know what you're going to say, and the answer is still no! This is my home. This is my country. I will not be driven out of it like a dog. We've done nothing wrong.'

I gave him a cold stare which I hoped came close to being as cynical and sardonic as the one he so often levelled at me. 'Raffles...'

He rolled his eyes. 'Oh, well, not nothing. But it's not the theft of a few dozen jewels that has you wanting to hot-foot it off to the continent, is it?'

'It is though, A. J.,' I pleaded, willing him to understand. 'It's all part of the same thing. I don't know why you refuse to see that! And would it really be so much of a burden? To go off and spend our days in Paris, or the south of France, or Amsterdam, or—you know it's not illegal in Italy, anymore?'

'Really?' Raffles exclaimed. 'By Jove, the Italians have made it legal to burgle jewels, Bunny? These continentals certainly are forward thinkers! Though I admit, that might take some of the fun out of it.'

'Can't you be serious for one moment?''

'I am serious, I assure you.'

'Why are you so hell bent against the idea?'

Raffles shrugged, the picture of nonchalance. 'I'd miss the cricket, for one.'

'The cricket! Hang the bloody cricket!' I cried, throwing my hands in the air and sending a fresh wave of pain over my still-bruised head. A. J. must have noticed my grimace, for in a moment, and in spite of his obvious annoyance with me, he was at my elbow, urging me to take a seat and studying me with concern—that very same concern which I feared might drive him to all manner of dark deeds if we didn't leave.

'I'm fine,' I growled, pushing him away, unwilling to be the beneficiary of those gentle hands and soft words which never failed to win me around.

'I don't know that you are,' said he in a ponderous tone of voice. 'You look tired, rabbit.'

'I am tired, A. J.!' I snapped. 'I am so tired of this! Of these same arguments over and over, of this life we lead, always halfway in the shadows. I'm tired of you! Sometimes I can't help but wonder whether you care more about crime than about me. Whether you care more about—about scoring points in some imaginary war with the world than in living in it!'

He stared at me coolly. 'I'm going out.'

'You can't just run away from this, Raffles.'

'Can't I?' he snapped back. 'I thought that was precisely what you wanted me to do?'

'And what's so wrong with that?' I protested. 'It's not like we haven't run before, when we've needed to. You never showed any of this damned pride over it then. You were prepared to go to Australia after Levy—'

He waved his hand and shook his head, cutting me off with a condescending curl of his lip. 'That was different.'

'I don't see how!'

'If you can't see how, it's because you choose not to. There're none so blind as those who refuse to see—that's in the bible, isn't it? I'm not about to argue with the bible, Bunny; and I'm not about to keep arguing with you.'

'For God's sake! Why must you be so damned stubborn? I'm not asking you to do anything so terrible, am I? All I ask is that we go away for a while. Six months, a year, two at the outside! Two years somewhere sunny, A. J., somewhere safe. Is that really so much to ask? You don't seem to understand that it's not so bad for you as it is for me! You're an athlete, a cricketer, the model of—of manly virtue, Raffles. But I'm—' I looked away, those old feelings of inadequacy, uncertainty, effeminacy, clenching in my chest. '—I'm not.'

Raffles' strong hand fell softly upon my shoulder, gently turning me back toward him, speaking firmly but not unkindly. 'Bunny, if we clear out, all we'll be doing is confirming whatever is in the air. Even if there were any reason to do so, which there's not, bolting would still be the worst possible idea. I know you're worried, rabbit, but please trust me.'

'It's not the worst idea, though,' I insisted, taking the risk of meeting his eyes, gazing into them and hoping that for once he would find my cause irresistible. 'I've thought about it; I'm not so stupid as you seem to think I am, Raffles. Plenty of people take extended trips abroad, for all sorts of reasons. You could say you were going for Continental cricket; I could be going to write. We needn't even be seen to leave together, we could go separately and meet on the boat! It's a foolproof plan, Raffles—I've thought it all through! I need you to trust me for once. Is that really so much to ask for? Is it so much of a compromise, after everything we've been through? After everything I've been through?'

'Bunny…'

'Please, Raffles, please. For once in your life just stop being so—damned stubborn! God knows I've compromised enough of myself for you!'

His hand fell from my arm. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Don't pretend you don't know,' I said, my anxiety turning to bitterness on my tongue. 'I've turned everything that I am upside down for you. I've gone from black to white. Do you know what that's put me through? I'm constantly going against everything I thought I believed in, everything that I was taught was right…' I ran my hand through my hair and swallowed back the emotion threatening to silence me. 'I always have to trust you, Raffles, but you never trust me. After all that business with Levy when you asked—no, when you ordered me to go pack my things and meet you at the train station, when I didn't even know where we were going, or why, or whether we would ever come back again, didn't I do it without question? I was willing to give up everything on nothing more than your word. On nothing more than that you asked it of me. And yet you won't even do this for me? For us both! I'm constantly negotiating with myself because of you—constantly! I'm a criminal because of you, I steal, and I lie, and I—and all of that might come easily to you, Raffles, but it isn't easy for me. I hate it!'

'I never forced you to do anything.'

'I never said you did, but—why must it always be all one thing, or all the other? Why does it always have to be me doing what you want? All I'm asking is that you compromise, just once, just on this one thing, as I do all the time with everything!'

'Maybe you would have less trouble with your nerves if you didn't,' he answered, cruelly. 'Decide where you are, Bunny. Decide what you are, and stand up for it. Otherwise what's the point of anything?'

'Decide!?' I cried. 'I decided four years ago, A. J., when I helped you burgle Danby's that very first night! I know exactly where I am: I'm here. I am with you, Raffles, God help me, I'm here. But at times I can't help but wonder who, or what, or where you are. You hide everything from me—everything. And I put up with it! I put up with all of it because—because I believe that you do love me, deep down. Because I want to believe that you do. I need to believe you do, because if I can't then—then what the hell do I have left? Nothing. And that's not enough, A. J ...It's not enough. I need you to prove it to me. If you love me, prove it.'

'Prove it? Bunny, I—' Raffles cut himself off with a bitter laugh and shook his head. 'I'm not carrying on this conversation. I've given you my answer along with my reasons; whether or not you listen to me, whether or not you believe me, that's for you to figure out by yourself. I'm not going to tell you what to do, Bunny; I only ask that you extend the same courtesy to me.'

'You are infuriating! I don't understand why you're so—so—so mule-headed!'

'I know you don't,' he said, coldly, turning on his heel and walking to the door. With his fingers on the handle he paused, not looking up, not looking back. 'Go home, Bunny. Go for a walk, clear your head—do what you like. But I am going out, and I don't expect to see you here when I get back.'

'Fine!'

'Fine.'

The door slammed behind him as he walked away.