BEHIND ENEMY LINES

Having to be near Danse again, was the universe's cruelest joke. It was as if I had let someone die. I accepted it. Mourned it. Moved on. But now he was resurrected. Back to life again. I had been able to come to terms with it. Before, when he had left, leaving me with nothing more than a short note, there was still so much avoided pain. And anger. I could not resolve it, because he had never given me a chance. This time, I could look him in the eye, tell him how I felt, make him acknowledge my pain. It felt like I had cleaned out a festering wound. It was still sore, still raw, but it was no longer rotting. But again, I had to take a knife to it. Pull off all those bandages. Poke and prod it again. It made me resent him. I couldn't focus at my task, having to listen to those buzzing thoughts. I'd nearly gotten us lost twice, over the course of the night.

After much concentrated effort, we had arrived at the first holy site Thiel, the zealot Richter had referred me to, had suggested looking. The night was waning, as the first specks of sunlight fought their way to the surface.

The Glowing Grove, is what Thiel had called it. It was little more than a grove of dead trees and mud. A few yellow barrels lay scattered about. There were offerings here and there; a radscorpion stinger, a lone fusion core and a few skulls. My rad counter ticked away its warning as we closed in on the grove. I sighed and dug around in my bag for a Rad-X. I offered Danse some, but he declined.

"So how was the spring?" I said, imagining him slurping up a mouthful of the toxic water.

"I don't know," he replied flatly, swinging his gun around to his back so he could squat over a set of tracks. I turned to look at him, a muddled look on my tired face. He saw my expression and shrugged, "I didn't go," he said simply.

"What?" I said, crossing my arms. "How did you convince Richter, then?" I asked, pursing my lips. He stood up, handling his rifle once more.

"I lied," his voice was plain. He watched me for a moment and rose an amused eyebrow, as if he found me hilarious, "You actually drank it?" he said slowly. I growled and went back to looking for clues. I think I heard him chuckle, "You didn't think to just, lie?" His voice aggravated me. I wanted to pull his tongue out with a pair of tongs.

"No." I was curt. He did chuckle. I snapped my eyes to him. "I was trying to gain their trust," I snarled, not appreciating the humor in his words.

"They're so brain addled, I don't think they would know the difference," he replied.

"Hey, I'm not the one who raised suspicion, am I?" I spat back at him. I gave him a complacent little smirk and went back to my work. I turned back to the hastily made sign we first encountered. Pieces of magazines and brochures had been sloppily pasted on piece of the holy banner. I sighed and scratched my brow. "We'll need to go to the other site," I said tiredly. I knitted my hands together and reached up, stretching up to my toes. I groaned and dropped my arms. Danse was looking at me, still a little amused over my annoyance. I rolled my eyes, "Which way do the tracks head?" I huffed.

"What happened?" he said, referring to my radiation fueled hallucinations. I sighed and hung my head back, letting out a small growl.

"Nothing!" I shouted and stomped away. He followed me silently. I was not going to tell him a ghost woman led me to a small wooden statue. I wasn't sure I could handle him laughing at me.

I used my Pip-Boy and headed towards the coordinates Thiel had given me. We were headed towards the Radiant Crest Shrine. Danse came up to stride, beside me. I glanced over, relieved to see the amusement had left the lines of his face. I changed the subject, just to be sure.

"Richter was in the Enclave," I declared, adjusting the straps of my pack. Danse's eyes danced to mine.

"Makes sense," he replied, looking forward again.

"Do you think he sensed you might be Brotherhood?" I asked, just trying to pass time, really.

"I don't see how," he said, completely oblivious to how obvious it would be a stranger. I gave him a deadpan stare. He noticed and paused, "What?"

"Really?" I said.

"Maybe," he shrugged, keeping his footfalls in tune with mine. "Nothing I can do about it now," he added. I sighed and nodded, hoping that was not the case. "I suppose the Children would be appealing to an Enclave minion," he said with distaste. "They like forcing others to see things the way they do."

"And the Brotherhood doesn't?" I scoffed. He slowed his pace, apparently offended. I stopped and looked at him. "Let's be honest. Aren't they very much the same?"

"Absolutely not," he replied, walking forward again.

"Oh, so they didn't want me to kill you just because you're a synth? Despite all your loyalty, hard work and dedication?" I said, my voice high and sweet, pretending it was no big deal. He sighed nosily and quickened his pace so he was ahead of me. "Well it's the truth," I shouted after him. You can pretend it never happened, but it did. As much as you dislike the past, it's just that, the past. I was so busy talking to myself, I ran right into him. I grunted as I crashed into his massive frame. "Hey, what gives?" I said, peeling out from behind him.

There in front of us, under musky columns of light, were three corpses. Each of them hanging from a tree by their arms. Each one sported a dirty, tattered cardboard sign, pinned to their rags.

Traitor. Heretic. False Prophet.

It almost felt like all of those labels applied to me. I swallowed hard. It was in moments like those, I realized just how far the Children could go, to enforce their beliefs. I tried not to think about my own corpse dangling from a tree. As the bodies swung to and fro in the gentle wind, I found myself in a trance. Like the dull click of a metronome, my eyes followed them. I finally broke the silence, pulling a combat knife from the side of my boot.

"What are you doing?" he murmured.

"I'm not going to leave them up there," I said. Maybe it bothered me, because I saw myself up there, carrion for the creatures of the fog. Though I did not know those people, they meant something to someone. I hoped, someone may do the same for me, if I met my own fate in a similar way. The Island, the Commonwealth, the Wasteland - pick your poison - they were all like this. Merciless and obscene. I could easily think back to my life before this, and tell you I never saw a body. I never suffered a gun shot wound. My experiences counted for very little against the stark contrast of what my life had become. Even though I had been outside the vault for so long I could no longer remember my age, my own birthday, the days of the week - it still hurt to see the suffering of others. Could you really ever get used to that? I wasn't sure. Maybe if you were like Danse and this was just the way things were. If you were born and raised knowing this was the way it was. You couldn't really see the unjust and the foul grit in a life you've always known.

As I cut each body down, I closed their blank eyes with gloves hands. I took off the signs and crumbled them up, tossing them aside. I could not spare the time to give them a burial, but I felt they would understand. Danse watched at first, keeping cautious eyes on the horizon. But as I worked on the third corpse, he began to help me. We didn't say anything. Maybe because we were being respectful, in a way. Whatever the reason, it felt right to work under the heady, early morning light, in silence.

As I leaned down and crossed the last set of hands, I gave an airy huff and lowered my head. I couldn't help but imagine the people of the Harbor, the people huddled in the Nucleus, all gone. Snuffed out as if they had never existed at all. Who would mourn them? People like the Children weren't missed. They were society's little lost things. No one would even know their corpses laid in a mass grave. The destruction on Far Harbor would destroy whole families. There would be no one to miss them, as they would all die together. A thought passed through me then, quick and aching. If I died, who would miss me? Though I had made many acquaintances in my time, I didn't have a family. It was unsettling to think the cultists lunatics had more of a family than I did. I tried to tell myself it didn't matter. I would be dead, so how could I possibly care? It wasn't the idea of being forgotten that propelled that wave of caustic helplessness, it was the thought that I didn't have anyone. I didn't have anyone to return to when this was all over. I could make my way back to the Minutemen. It was the closest to family I had now. Despite all their help and their cause, it just never felt like it was my place. The fulfillment we all seek, was not waiting there for me. I bundled up all these thoughts and pushed them aside. Like I did everything else.

I slid my knife back into my boot and looked up at Danse, scanning the trees. I wondered if he ever had the same thoughts. I couldn't tell you. "Lets go," I murmured, slipping my shotgun back into my hands and checking the barrels. I clicked the mechanism shut and started forward once more. Danse slowly came to trudge at my side. He gave me a sideways glance.

"That was a good thing you did," he said softly, as if he admired my actions. I flicked my eyes to him for a moment and gave a weak shrug, "I mean it," his voice was firm. I wanted to tell him everything I had felt. All those wistful and aching thoughts, ricocheting around in the pit of me. I didn't know how to broach such a subject with him anymore. He spoke again, "You were right," he said, just gazing off into the forest as we dragged onward. I watched him expectantly, "I am empty," he finally said, his jaw tightening. I tried to think back to the words I had said, when I was angry. I felt a burgeoning weight of shame.

"I didn't mean all of that," I breathed, craning my neck to look at the treetops. "I say things to hurt people when... I am hurting," I sighed heavily. I didn't know if I meant that but I couldn't tell him he was empty inside, not with that look on his face.

"You were only telling me the truth," he replied, his words sounded as if he had told himself that a hundred times. I stopped in my tracks.

"Hey," I said, giving him a small glower, "If you're empty, then I am the Queen of the Heartless," I said raising an eyebrow. He stopped beside me and finally fleeted a glance down at me. I sighed noisily, "Look," I said, trying to articulate what I was thinking, in a way he would understand, "Just because you were made in lab, doesn't mean you are any less of a human than I am," I said, trying to make sense of my own words. I waved at him, dismissing my words and starting again, "What makes me a human?" I asked. He looked frustrated, but humored my words.

"You have a soul, you have memories," he said simply. I scanned his eyes, trying to find something there. But I was just as lost as he was.

"I can't tell you that you have a soul, or if any of us do," I shrugged, looking out at the treeline and watching the harsh morning light dissipate into clouds of fog, "But you have memories," I said softly. "And you can always make new ones," I said with a faded smile. He looked frustrated.

"You have to be able to feel things to form a memory," he said, walking forward again. I quickly sidled up to his side.

"Okay, well what about us?" the words fell out before I could catch them. I tried not to look at him, my face hot and red. "I mean, you have memories of us," I quickly bandaged my sentence.

"Well, yes," he said with a nod, still balking at my help.

"Well, what do you feel when you think about all that?" I asked innocently. I wasn't trying to sound so selfish, or extract some kind of emotional pleasure from him. It was the only thing I knew about him that I knew he could associate feelings with memory.

He was silent for too long. I felt a rush of heat, regretting the whole conversation. "Pain," he finally said. My eyes snapped to him. He had stopped walking and pointed the barrel of his rifle forward. My eyes followed his gaze and found that we had arrived at the next holy site. I decided to shelf the conversation. It was too difficult for both of us to endure anyway.

The Radiant Crest Shrine was much like the Glowing Grove, heavily irradiated and devoid of life. It was littered with the trademark yellow barrels and banners of the Children. The altar, shabby and filled with small tokens of worship, donned the same style sign as the Glowing Grove. I knelt in front of it and inspected it quietly as Danse investigated the area. Suddenly I began to piece all of the clues together.

"Hey," I said, raising my voice. Danse came to stand behind me. I pointed a finger at a small piece of paper from a place called Kawaketak Station. A piece of the same paper had been at the Glowing Grove. It had exact directions on it as well. I quickly punched them into my Pip-Boy. I stood up and sighed, motioning to the south of us. "Lets get this over with," I sighed. Danse was quiet, following at my heels. I hoped he was thinking about our conversation. Maybe he was feeling a bit better. Or possibly worse. I never knew what to say to him that he would actually listen to. We did have that in common. We were both unbelievably set in our ways.

Kawaketak Station was not far from the shrine. It was little more than a gathering of cabins. A campsite that had been left derelict long before our time. Danse and I scanned the area before we made our way towards it. I couldn't be sure this wasn't just an elaborate set up to kill me. Richter was such an enigma, I couldn't place which side of the spectrum his thoughts preyed.

After we cleared the campsite, we entered the only cabin that unlocked. I shouldered into the decayed wooden door, nearly taking the whole thing off of its hinges. I stumbled inside and raised my gun to my hip, doing a quick clear of the room. Danse came in behind me, having to duck under the frame slightly. After I was sure we were alone, I holstered my gun. "No one's here," I practically growled. The day was slipping between my fingers and I was still chasing this woman down. I could never be a bounty hunter. This was altogether boring.

I approached a stack of crates. It was covered in various sheets of paper, boxes of ammo and tubes of glue. I nearly stepped on a holotape, carelessly tossed to the floor. I gently raised the heel of my boot and fetched the white and yellow plastic square from underneath me. I hit a button on my Pip-Boy and opened the tape slot. I shoved in the dusty square and was about to hit play when a hot, sharp pain seared into the flesh of my calf. I shouted and kicked my leg instinctively. I spun around, faltering on my now bleeding leg. Danse wasted no time, firing his laser rifle at the haggard silhouette of a large wolf. I cursed under my breath as a second emaciated frame barreled into the cabin. It barred sharp, yellowed fangs, that snapped audibly around the base of my ankle. A scream, high and writhing, escaped my lips. I used the stock of my gun to pummel its head. I heard a sickening crack as it yelped, loping away from me and towards the opposite side of the cabin, where Danse stood. I fumbled with my gun, swinging it to my side. Before I could pull the trigger, a third wolf, larger than the other two, slunk into the cabin as if it was nothing more than a toothy phantom. It jumped from its place at the door, nearly clearing the room in one bound. I tried to sidestep to escape its path, but tripped over a crate. As I fell, I pulled the trigger of my gun. Both barrels fired at once. I could hear the sound of splintering wood as both rounds shattered through the wall of the old building. I knew I wouldn't have enough time to reload my gun, so I tossed it to the floor and rolled to my back. As fluid as I could, I reached down to my combat knife nestled in my boot and pulled it from its place. As the larger wolf descended upon me, teeth bared, fetid, rotting breath wheezing, I buried the blade of my knife deep in the sinew of its neck. It still advanced, it's teeth snapping shut just in front of my face. I pushed against its bony chest with my boots, screaming a battle cry as I twisted the handle of my knife, pushing the blade as deep as I could. I withdrew, my hand slick with blood, and buried the blade once more. I kept lunging, until it lay still on top of me. I shoved its lifeless body to the floor with a heave and crawled to my knees. I took a moment to gather myself. I looked down at my hands, soaked with crimson, covered it tufts of dark, black fur. My right foot was wet, my boot sloshing with blood. I growled, looking up to find Danse doubled over, holding a hand on his shoulder.

"Oh fuck," I seethed, ambling to his side. "Let me look," I said hotly, peeling his hand away to reveal a crater o f flesh and bone. I winced at it, glancing up at him. His eyes were closed, his head tilted back as he clenched his jaw. "I'm so sorry," I breathed, taking his hand and pushing it back against his pulpy flesh. I pulled my pack from around my shoulders and dropped to the ground, and began fishing around in its contents. I pulled out a stack of cloth, different colors, all cut from old shirts and linens. I set the bandages aside and scrounged around again. I pulled out a stimpack, it glided around of the slick surface of my fingers. I stood up, pulled the cap off in my teeth and jabbed the long needle into his arm. I spit the cap off and snatched the bandages off the ground. I quickly began piling them onto his wound. They quickly soaked up the excess of blood, immediately drenched through. As they turned bright red, I would toss them aside. As the bleeding abated, I pushed a final square of fabric into his wound and put his hand over it. I reached back into my bag and produced a thready roll of cloth. I went about wrapping his arm, to keep the fabric in place over his injury. As I looped it one final time, I took an end in my teeth and pulled tightly. He grimaced, every so slightly and gave a sigh of relief. I breathed a tired, cumbersome sigh and let my shoulders droop to my sides. "Your arm is definitely broken," I breathed, wiping the back of my hand across my forehead. I could feel sweat gathering on my neck, down the front of my rags, my hairline.

"You," he said, panting, "Have terrible aim," he finished, unclenching his eyes to look at me weakly. I chuckled and stumbled backwards.

"That is goddamn lie. I have-" I couldn't finish my sentence. I had passed out, as the adrenaline had ebbed from me. In my haste to patch up Danse, I had neglected to fix myself.

When I awoke, the last glint of sunlight was retreating into the dark. I rolled my tongue around in my dry mouth and groaned. My calf felt as if it were bursting into hot, blistering flames of agony. I moved my arm, which had been shielding my eyes and sat up. I was on the floor, my rags were rolled up under my head, along with my pack. I wrinkled my nose. "Why does it feel like my skin is going to fall off?" I moaned and collapsed again on my makeshift bed.

"You have a fever," Danse replied from his spot on a crate. He was cleaning his rifle. I tried to curl up into a small, fragile fetus but it was too painful. "You're lucky that's all you have," he sighed, pushing the cell back into his rifle and finally bringing his eyes to meet mine. I waved a tired hand at him.

"I am fine," I replied, concealing a cough.

"You drank toxic water, spent forty-eight hours living in an irradiated submarine pen and you were just mauled by a wild animal," he said, raising his brows. He looked like a disapproving father. I coughed again, a tight, spiraling pain rippled into my chest. I winced and clutched the center of my bosom. "I shouldn't have let you come," he murmured, talking to himself. I rolled my eyes.

"I don't need your permission," I said flippantly, trying to sit up again.

"I should have been the one," he replied, sulking.

"Will you stop that?" I snapped at him, crossing my arms and setting them atop my knees. He looked at me confused. I huffed and blew a strand of sweat drenched hair from my face.

"Stop what?" his voice sounded irritated and perplexed at once.

"I don't know," I groaned, letting my face sink into the folds of my arms, "Existing," I said, my voice muffled. He just sighed and continued tinkering with his gun. I lifted my eyes slightly from my makeshift arm-nest and wriggled my nose at him. "You know until you showed up, everything was going swimmingly," I stated and began to rhythmically stroke my forehead on the back on my hand. It felt like a dormant volcano, erupting to life.

"Apparently not," he quipped, he had removed the sights from his rifle and was using a knife to tighten something.

"Yes. Yes it was," I breathed, closing my eyes, riding out another tendril of pain, "But whenever you show up, I end up unconscious. Why is that? Hm?" I said, narrowing my red and swollen eyes at him. He sighed inwardly and stopped what he was doing to look at me, inattentive.

"You're just reckless, with or without my presence," he retorted. My brow bunched into a thick line. I was going to insult him, but I was too tired and I couldn't help but see what he said was true. So I just snorted. An excellent comeback. My lack of argument must have surprised him, because he looked at me with awaiting pools. I stuck my tongue out at him and buried my face again. "You're much more tolerable when you're silent," he said flatly. I didn't move, save for lifting my arm and presenting him with my middle finger.

I perked, my ears catching the soft sounds of something in the distant. Danse didn't seem to notice. "What the fuck is that?" I said, my eyes dancing around the mostly empty room. He followed my eyes and gave me a confused look.

"What?" he said, once more resuming his task.

I lifted my hand up and inspected it. I had noticed, it felt very odd. Like it wasn't there. I had read about phantom limbs before, but what was the name for not feeling your hand when it was very obviously there? I brought it close to my face and spread my fingers, gave it a slight wave and looked at Danse through them.

"Okay, well what the fuck is wrong with my hand?" I said, a little panicked. "I think I'm paralyzed!" I said, giving my hand another good shake.

"No, you're not," he replied, his demeanor was terrifyingly placid. I waved my hand again at him, pointing at it. He just sighed and looked at me, "You're hallucinating," he said calmly. I snorted and pinched the fingers of my not-quite-there hand.

"I think I would know if I was hallucinating," as the words left my mouth, I realized that the inside of the cabin was filled with semi-solid butterflies, all glowing a soft yellow light, landing here and there. I slowly laid back down, nodding. "Okay," was all I could say.

"It's from your fever," he said, finally standing up. I could see the edge of his figure as he moved around. I swallowed a difficult, rocky breath and tried not to have a meltdown.

"Mhm," I said, clenching my eyes shut. "No big deal," I squeaked. "Everything is kosher," I said, rambling to myself, "Hey man, I'm cool, it's cool," I put my hand over my mouth, hoping it would stop me from speaking. I glanced at Danse and saw one of the butterflies had landed on his head. "There's a bug on your face," I whispered through my hand. He ignored me. "It's okay, they don't bite," I murmured. He continued to ignore me. I finally managed to quiet myself. I just laid there in a feverish stupor, marveling at the butterflies. Once in a while, one would swoop down to me and I would reach weakly forward and try to catch it in my fingers.

As the night dwindled on, I would wake and sleep frequently. I could feel Danse check me routinely, his heavy hand tracing the clammy skin of my forehead, or the thready pulse of my throat. I would wave him away, shoving at his hand feebly as I tried to slumber.

It must have been very late into the night when I woke to find he wasn't there. I slowly rocked to sit on my haunches. I coughed in the darkness, my throat arid as a desert. A lantern was the only source of light, soft and orange. I fished around in my pack for a bottle of water. It was my last one - I could have used at least three more. I uncapped it and drank the entire bottle quickly, wishing there were more. I crumpled up the bottle and tossed it into the dark. As I pulled up my Pip-Boy to look at the time, Danse had just come through the front door. My hands instinctively looked for my gun, but found nothing. I rasped noisily in the dark as he sauntered into the center of the room.

"Thank you," I said, my voice cracked and hoarse. "For taking care of me. Again." I tried to sound grateful, but it came off as wholly irritated. He set his rifle down on a nearby crate and squatted in front of me. I craned my neck back as his eyes met mine. They were dark in the blackness, glinting in the flicker of the lantern light. I cleared my throat and quirked a brow. "What?" I asked, dazed. I was half afraid I was still hallucinating and he was going to strangle me, or stab me, or gnaw at my face like a ghoul.

"It's nothing," he finally replied, just staring at me. I sucked in a sharp breath and shrugged my shoulders. "I was thinking," he said slowly, almost as if he had trouble forming the words. I just looked at him expectantly. "About that question you asked me..." his voice sounded as if he were navigating foreign waters. "What I felt when I thought about us?" I swallowed again, my throat ached.

"Pain," I said, my cracked voice was hard to hear. He nodded tightly and finally broke his gaze from me.

"Not just pain," he replied, calculating. "I feel," he was searching for something in the darkness, his voice trailing off. I fidgeted with my hands, relieved I could feel both of them. "Sadness," he said, finally bringing his eyes back to mine. I slouched, slightly.

"Okay?" I said slowly. I realized I sounded indifferent. But I wasn't, I was trying to understand where he was going with all of this. I quickly said something else, anything, so he didn't feel ashamed for sharing with me, for once, "I know," I breathed. He started to stand up, but I stopped him, curling my fingers around his forearm, "I mean, I feel that way too," my voice sounded heavy. Okay. Sharing time. I exhaled slowly, "When I thought I was going to die, I thought I would be ready to go," I rasped. I tried to clear my throat but just coughed. "But I wasn't. If I am being honest with myself, I've been waiting to," I admitted, my grasp felt weak, "To die, I mean," the words were painful, but true. "But I'm not ready to die," I said firmly. "And I was thinking of all the things I wanted before I go," I said, my voice was starting to falter, "I thought about Preston Garvey and how goddamn incessant he is," I said, smiling through the ache in the pit of my stomach, "I thought of Nick and what he was doing back in Diamond City. I thought about the last words I had said to Shaun," I shook my head, angry with myself, "I didn't say I loved him. He's my son and I still can't tell him I love him," I looked at Danse with pleading eyes. His brown orbs were narrow, curious, serene as ever. I set my jaw and sighed, letting go of his arm, "Maybe you don't understand where I'm going with this."

"Did you think of me?" he asked, his eyes seemed to cleave right through me. The question was so sudden, so volatile, it felt like I had been swept up in the arms of a tidal wave. I floundered for a moment, gasping and searching his eyes for something to hold onto. But it was like reaching for safety in the abyss. I could feel a heat rising like a fiery winged beast, in the hollow of my chest. I finally looked away from him.

"Would my answer, honestly, change a goddamn thing?" my voice was loathsome and tepid, like raking hot coals. I stared at the grimy cabin floor, hating the silence that followed my words.

Suddenly, his lips were against mine. But not like in the cave, enraged and hungry. Their touch was indulgent and kind, something I wasn't used to. Something he did not usually do in our past. He was always filled with so much anger.

I reciprocated, for a moment before turning away. I clenched my hands in my lap and sighed airily.

"You can't keep doing that," I said softly. I traced the lines of my palm with my fingertips. I glanced at him to see a bewildered look on his face, "You can't just - just - use me to make yourself feel something," I said, trying to quell the anger bubbling in my voice. It was like an intricate pattern had fallen into place all on its own. It occurred to me then, like it had never before, that maybe, all I was to him, was a pure shot of adrenaline. Anger, pain, desire - whatever it extracted, he nourished himself on, like I was his carrion.

"You don't know how it feels to realize everything you knew, everything you loved, everything you stood for, was planted inside of you, by someone else," he said, the look on his face was that of desperation. "You are the only thing I have, that feels real," he said, his eyes locking onto mine, "That makes me feel real." I could tell it was hard for him to say. It was hard to open that sealed, rusted door and let me in.

"Then why do you keep pushing me away?" I said, my brows knotting together. He sighed and bowed his head for a moment. It was a hard question, even for me.

"Because, I don't know what to do," he finally said, "With all of this," he breathed. It was as if he couldn't process it. He wanted to speak again, to explain, to quantify everything that lingered there just underneath the surface. He was frustrated, angry. "It scares me," he rasped, almost ashamed, it seemed. "I can't understand it, I don't know how to."

"You know, that isn't just a synth thing," I replied, offering him the ghost of a smile, "Even humans have trouble with..." I trailed off and sighed. I could sense he hated the feeling of being vulnerable. The feeling, that there were things out of his control. The unknown, is truly terrifying. We shared that in common. I hid behind grit and profanity, he just completely walled himself off.

He stood to his feet, perhaps discouraged with the conversation. Or, he felt that thread, the one we shared, taut and undeniable, ever tightening in the pit of him. That claustrophobic feeling; you can't breathe, you can't fathom it, you just know how it feels and how powerless it makes you feel. The repercussions of something set in motion, you can do nothing to stop.

"Yes," I said quickly, standing up to meet his cold gaze, "Yes, I thought of you," I spat out, the words were coppery and bitter. It felt like losing. It felt like carving my heart out and cleaving it in two. My sore eyes swam in his pools of sepia. "The thought of never seeing you again..." I searched his gaze, my mouth opening and closing, looking for the right words, "It felt like I was going to die and I was leaving my soul behind," I finished. It hurt. It hurt to tell him what I still felt, what I always felt. If I died, I would surely haunt the earth, searching for the piece of me I had left behind. "You're scared?" I said, my voice wavered, lips trembling. "I'm fucking petrified," I whispered breathlessly.

There it was, hanging in the air, crude and agonizing. It felt as if the cabin exploded into a mushroom cloud of silence.

I nearly jumped out of my skin, as his hand snarled itself in the sash of my brown hair. His other hand was on the small of my back, bereft and sweltering, like melted caramel. He leaned down, pressing his forehead against mine. The hazy, burgeoning warmth blossoming between our lips was almost too hard to ignore. I let out a shaky, wanton breath as he slowly lifted me up to his waist. He stepped backwards, slowly, his mouth still wavering over mine. In a fluid motion, he sat down on a nearby crate, guiding my lips to his. With an encouraging gasp I knitted my hands around his neck and leaned into his frame.

It seemed like we could have existed there forever, cleaved into one another. Tendrils of warmth coiling up inside of me, until I felt like I would shatter into a million pieces. We did not push any further, content to trade that wanton urgency on our lips. Eventually, he parted from me, taking all my breath with him. I untied myself from him, trudging to my things, scattered abiut the floor. I scooped up my pack and slung it back over my shoulders. Danse put out the lantern, checked the safety on his rifle and led me out the front door.