Title: Not Yet by Lightning

Chapter: Twenty

Author: Jade Sabre

Notes: This chapter and the next one are both very short, but I felt both of them were necessary and un-expandable, and so here's the first one. It's one of my favorites; it's the last one I wrote, I think, and perhaps…softens the blow of what we all know is coming.

Reviews, as always, are some of the most wonderful things that you could ever give me ever. If you like the fic (or even if you don't), now's the time to tell me!

Disclaimer: I don't own Neverwinter Nights, or any of its sequels or expansions, or any of the characters contained herein, aside from my PC, who was created on a Bioware engine and thus probably therefore partially belongs to them too.

20

She woke to a light breeze tickling her face, and Bishop's breath in her ear. Her eyes snapped open and she tensed, taking a moment to absorb her surroundings before relaxing. They were curled in a hollow by a tree, their cloaks layered over them for warmth, and she had slept with his chest for a pillow, the most comfortable part of the night. The light filtering through the trees was the dim blue-grey of the sky just before dawn, a color she had known since she was a little girl, a color of unease and tension. Each dawn might be her last; sunset, at least, came with the promise of a day ended, and lived.

And this dawn…

She rested her head a moment longer, her cheek warmed on his chest, his hair soft against her skin, the motion of his breathing lulling her back to sleep. His arm lay haphazardly across her shoulders, his fingers almost but not quite holding her tight. Her eyes took all this in at a glance; she would have to move her head to see his face.

And so she pressed a kiss to his chest and raised herself up, propping herself up against the ground as his arm fell away from her, letting the breeze blow across her shoulders, giving her goosebumps. She shivered and brushed hair away from her face, and when she looked down at him, his eyes were open, watching her face.

They stayed that way for a moment; she knew her face was blank, but only because she couldn't make her muscles move, or change; they simply were. He looked the same—tired, or bored, blank, just—watching.

And then his eyes dropped below her face, and she turned away and sat up, giving him a lovely view of her back, if he wanted it. "It's almost dawn," she said, her voice quieter than she meant it to be. He didn't respond, and so she finally pushed away the cloaks, leaving them to cover him and drawing her legs up for a moment, until she overcame the chill. "I need to go back."

She was acutely aware that she was naked, just as she was acutely aware that he didn't move, merely lay back amid the roots and the sticks and the moss and watched her dress. She pulled her linen breeches on, one leg at a time, wondering if she was teasing him, and then her leather pants over those. She stood and wrapped her breasts in their bindings, securing and supporting them, and then pulled her tunic over her head, tugging a moment to get her arms through their sleeves. She slipped on her overcoat, the least obnoxious one she owned, worn and faded brown without a trace of Neverwinter insignia, and then donned worn boots to match. She stood for a moment, still not looking at him, feeling his gaze on her as if her methodical actions had meant nothing, and she still stood naked before him.

She reached for her hair and gently tugged it out of her shirt, shaking it loose, and found her extra hair pins in her overcoat's pocket, and that was when he spoke.

"My offer still stands, you know."

She glanced at him, lying on his back with his arms crossed beneath his head, his gaze suddenly directed to the sky. "Which one?"

"You know." When she didn't reply, standing there with her pins unconsciously grasped in her hands, he turned his head to look at her. "Ditching this. Camping away for a year or two."

She took a deep breath, her stomach tightening. "Were your visits to the Mere that productive?"

He grinned, sardonically, but his lip twisted and he looked away. "Something like that."

She stared at him, and he sat up, meeting her gaze. "Well?"

It was her turn to look away, down at her hands, swallowing. "I can't."

"Can't or don't want to?" His voice was lazy with indifference, his eyes still narrowed. "Can't, or won't?"

"I can't." Not now. She wouldn't. She didn't want to. Not today. Another day, perhaps; a day when the combined forces of the powers of darkness weren't preparing to descend upon herself and her people, a dawn that didn't promise endings, one way or another. But in this dim blue-grey light she could no more disappear into the swamps than Lathandar could keep the sun from rising. Blasphemy, perhaps; but today he could not deny her, even in apostasy.

"Do you really want to go back there?" he drawled, still watching her not watch him.

The wind rustled her hair, blowing it into her face; irritated, she tightened her fist, and then quickly pinned her hair back, raising her eyes to meet his gaze—angered, or simply annoyed. "Yes," she said.

She had to step to him to retrieve her cloak; as she bent over, tugging it free, she took his chin in her other hand.

"You should take my offer," he said, his voice foreboding and yet still, somehow, lazy.

She looked at him, her fingers lightly stroking his cheek, and then she said, "You are asking me," in a quiet voice, not wanting to accuse him, simply to explain, because it seemed—cold, to leave without an explanation, "to give up everything I have worked for, over the course of my life."

Her hand fell away, and she straightened, looping her cloak over her arm, her gaze never leaving his face. "Before you dismiss my answer, I would ask that you ask yourself, whether or not you would do that for me."

And then she turned, and walked back towards the road and her Keep, the sun in the sky and the wind at her back.