3. The Agreement

When she comes down the next morning she half-expects him to be gone but he's still there, folding up the blanket she had put over him. He straightens when he hears her, holds himself very upright, very still. 'I'm sorry, Ava, I had meant to be on my way before now.'

She shrugs. 'It's okay. You want some breakfast?'

He takes in a breath, deep, holds it, lets it out. 'Thank you, no. I have no wish to encroach on your hospitality any further, although I do greatly appreciate it.'

She folds her arms, tosses the hair away from her face. Her eyes feel gritty from lack of sleep and every time she turns her head it throbs dully from the rifle-butt strike. She can feel the lump at the back of her head, tender under her fingers when she touches it, but then she's used to that. 'You decided where it is you're going?'

His head shakes. 'No.' He stands on the edge of a patch of early morning sunlight cutting across the floor, dust-motes rotating in a languid golden haze. It shimmers between them.

Her lips press together. 'No liquor in the house - that goes for both of us. No criminal activity of any kind. You do anything that I find even the littlest bit offensive and I kick you out. Stick to those rules and we'll get on just fine.'

He blinks at her slowly, owl-like, tilts his head. 'I don't-'

She puts her eyebrows up, her chin lifting. 'Bowman left me with a mortgage that I can't pay on my own. You can rent out the spare room.' Her weight transfers from one foot to the other. 'The mattress is lumpy and the window only opens halfway.' Bowman, in one of his rare moods of improvement; he had re-painted the room and painted the window shut. Somehow that had ended up being her fault, too. She'd laughed, she remembers, she'd laughed because it had been funny. Bowman hadn't thought so. She pushes the memory back down, fitting it alongside all the others. 'It ain't much but you're-' she catches a breath '-you're welcome to it.'

It's the same lack of movement as in the woods; she wouldn't have thought that someone who had always torn such a quicksilver path through life could be capable of so much stillness. 'Why?'

She looks around the room, eyes restless. 'You said if there was anything you could do to make amends.'

'As I recall, that involved my not setting foot here again. And I understand fully why you feel that way.'

'Well... I've had time to think it over and I've changed my mind. That's a woman's pre- pe-'

'Prerogative,' he says gently.

'Yes. And I've decided that this is what you can do.' The robe she wears is heavier than is usual for this time of year, crossed high at the throat, the belt pulled tight. The cord bites into her waist. 'I'll make some breakfast; you might as well sit down.'

He sinks more than sits, sucking in a breath and his face tightening.

She's been in enough pain in her life not to enjoy seeing someone else that way. 'There's some stuff upstairs, something Bowman had for when his back was out-'

'No.' Eyes drift closed, beads of sweat standing out on his forehead.

'Doesn't it hurt?'

His eyes open again and his lips pull back in a rictus smile. 'More than you know.'

Uncertainty and a kind of acceptance coils itself around them. She pulls the belt tighter and goes into the kitchen.