CW: heavy romance

Six stepped through the timedoor, without even thinking twice. She didn't know how she'd gotten there, why she'd done it, but it didn't matter.

She was free.

The place was darker than anywhere she'd ever been in the perpetually fluorescent TVA. Even the dim underbelly of the Viscera couldn't compare. It was still and peaceful, a weird, soft, chirping noise coming from the gently blowing grass all around her. She took a breath of the refreshingly cool, night air, and caught a whiff of something that she couldn't place. Some chemical, perhaps.

That's when her common sense smacked her in the face, hard. What was she doing?! She'd escaped, and hadn't even meant to. Six turned around to go straight back through the timedoor she'd stepped out of, but it was already gone. Her heart fluttered wildly in her chest. What was she going to do? She was officially a variant, now, and they were going to come for her, and lock her up forever…

She took another breath, tried to calm herself.

"Okay," she whispered to no one in particular, "if I just stand really still, right here, then maybe I won't mess up the timeline. Probably shouldn't talk, either."

With that, she pressed her lips shut and waited. And waited. Nothing moved. Nothing happened. She stood so still for so long that her leg started to cramp. When she bent her knee to flex it, her shoe made a squelching noise, and she caught another strong whiff of the chemical stench, so pungent it made her cough.

"You're standing in oil."

Six gasped and searched around her for the source of the voice, but saw nothing but darkness and fog.

"H-hello?" she squeaked.

"You are standing in oil, you idiot."

Suddenly, she saw it; a dark, hooded figure a few dozen feet in front of her, outlined by the light of a dim, clouded sliver of moon. The voice was low, female, and if she didn't know any better… it sounded kind of like her.

"Who are you?" she whispered, equal parts terrified and fascinated.

The clouds above them cleared, illuminating the ground below with as much light as the crescent moon could give. Dark puddles on the ground reflected the sky above. The figure tossed off her hood, and Six was left completely speechless.

It was herself. But… different. The clothes that she could see under her cloak were closely fitted, dark, all but for a few bits of gold that glinted in the moonlight. Her hair was a bit longer and more wavy, even a little wild, as if she didn't comb it out twice a day like Six did. She wore a tiara, too, with two small, golden horns in the front, one of them broken off. And the look in her eyes… Six could barely believe they were the same person. The stranger looked proud, self-assured, fierce even. Six wasn't sure if she'd ever seen that expression on herself, before.

The other woman sighed and swung something over her shoulder. Six couldn't quite make it out in the dim light at first, but it had a handle on one end, and a flat plate of metal on the other: a shovel.

"Will you stop standing around?" she grumbled, stomping closer through the oily mud, then slicing through the soil with the blade of the shovel. It suddenly sprang to life. Red lights blinked on all along the shaft and it made an urgent beeping noise.

"What's that?" asked Six. "Who are you? Where-"

"Where am I? Why am I here? What's going on?" her strange twin rudely mimicked Six's voice in a pitiful whine. She shoved the spade in further with her boot, making sure it wouldn't budge in the mud. "You're pathetic. I don't know why I bother."

"Bother with what?" asked Six, following her gingerly through the stinky oil field, watching out for puddles.

"To recreate any of this. I'm obviously not doing it for your benefit. Not anymore. I guess it just keeps me from going crazy."

The woman brought a little device out of her pocket, which Six instantly recognized as a tempad.

She gasped. "Where did you get one of those?"

"Stole it," her twin replied casually, swiping and tapping rapidly on the tempad.

Six took a step backward on the dry ground surrounding the oil field and wiped her dirty shoes on the dewy grass. She was still a little bewildered, and completely fascinated, even though this copy of her was awfully impolite… and a thief.

"I know you're probably kind of busy," said Six sheepishly, as the stranger continued to swipe on her tempad, "but could you explain-"

"No," she snapped. "No, I'm not going to explain myself to you, yet again."

"Why-"

"Because I do it every. Single. Time." she growled, startling Six. "Every time you fall asleep, I tell you exactly what's happened, and then you wake up, and by the next time I see you, you've forgotten everything. It's like you keep getting amnesia, or I'm not getting through…" she paused and shook her head, frustrated. "I give up. Just stay out of my way."

Six's heart sank, even though none of it made any sense, anyway. She wasn't asleep, she was wide awake. It was somehow disheartening when someone who looked just like you didn't even want you around.

"That's not my fault," Six retorted. "I can't help what I don't remember." She came close to the woman, pointing at her. "Are you the one who's been telling me to 'get out'?"

The woman froze, her expression softening.

"I suppose something's been getting through, after all," she murmured. For a fleeting moment, tremendous sadness glazed over the woman's eyes with a sheen of tears, then she inhaled sharply and shook her head, blinking them away. "Don't get your hopes up," she said to herself, under her breath.

As Six looked on, the woman fished a little lantern out of her huge cloak pocket, along with a flask of clear oil and a box of matches. She poured the oil into the lantern and lit the wick, holding up the lantern to illuminate them both. Her face was incredible, like looking into a mirror.

"Do you know all about my life?" Six asked.

Her lookalike tilted her head and nodded. "Unfortunately, yes. I know all about you, Six. And your friend Mobius. And… Lucky." The tears came back to her eyes, but a little smile curved at the corner of her lip. "Do you still like him?" her voice was suddenly so small and weak that Six couldn't distinguish it at all from her own.

"Not anymore," said Six, kicking at a clod of dirt. "He's a selfish asshole. He gets everyone else in trouble. He won't take anything seriously, either-"

The cloaked woman's laughter suddenly cut her off. "Oh, that's him alright. I wonder if he's still in there?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

The woman took a step closer and cupped Six's cheek with her free hand. Six couldn't look away from those green eyes, the exact same shade as hers.

"Don't lose him," she said, gently, yet urgently. "If you don't remember anything else, remember that. He loves you, Six." She grasped Six's hand in her own and pressed both of their intertwined fists against Six's chest. "He'd rip his own heart out for you. It would kill you both to drift apart from each other. Keep him close."

"But I can't trust him, now! And we're not going to have the same position after we're placed in our careers, so we probably won't see each other again…"

Six's doppelganger shook her head emphatically. "None of that matters, Six. Unless one of you dies, you have to stay together. Promise me you'll remember."

Before Six could say anything, a beam of light appeared out of the darkness, in the middle of the oil field. It spread and grew into a rectangular timedoor. The woman dropped both of their hands and covered the light of her lantern with her cloak.

"Shit," she said, her voice low and serious once again. "They're here."

"Oh, no… what do I do?"

"Just shut up and let it play out."

"But-"

"Shh!"

Six watched as the hunters filed through the timedoor, slowly scoping the place out. One of them waved their tempad over the glowing, red shovel. Then, another hunter-the leader of the group, it seemed-stepped cautiously through the oil field, scanning the horizon, and made a beeline straight for Six.

She covered her mouth so she wouldn't make a sound, but the flash of her white shirt against the darkness was enough to alert him to her presence.

"You! Variant!" he barked, then paused when he recognized her orange-and-brown striped tie. "Wait, what's a trainee doing out here? Explain yourself!"

As he and the other hunters made their way over, the glowing shovel forgotten in the mud, Six stood frozen to the spot, terrified for her life.

"Oh, God, what do we do?" she asked her twin. "I didn't mean to! I wasn't trying to escape!"

The woman growled at her and flung her cape off to the side, dramatically revealing the lantern.

"Stand back, you bloody twit!" she shouted, then shoved Six to the ground behind her and threw the lantern into the oil field. The plain burst into flames, the fire growing exponentially. Within a few seconds, every one of the hunters, their boots caked with oily mud, caught on fire like dry leaves. Their screams were horrible, too much for her to bear. The woman only watched them writhe.

Six screamed too, scrambling backwards. She clapped her hands over her ears, trying to dampen their screams, but the noise cut through her hands as if they were as thin as paper.

Another sound, even stronger, thudded persistently on top of the noise of incessant screeching. She thought for a moment that it was the sound of her heart beating straight out of her chest, but it was so loud… so real-

"Six?"

Six gasped herself awake and sat straight up in bed. She was still shaking from her dream, which, just like the others, was already fading quickly.

There had been fire, and a weird smell, and mud all over her shoes, and she'd run away… all of it was melting into her subconscious already, becoming formless.

No! There was something she had to remember. The woman who looked just like her had made her promise to remember…

"Six? Can I please talk to you?"

It was Lucky at the door. The pounding she'd mistaken for her heartbeat had been him knocking once again.

What had the woman said? Six closed her eyes, tried as hard as she could to recall her words. She laid her hand on her chest, over her heart, and all of a sudden, it came to her.

"Don't lose him. He loves you. Keep him close."

She whispered it out loud to herself, just as she had whispered her other mantra, "get out" after her exam. It had the same effect on her nerves, slowing her heartbeat and calming her shaking hands. The misery she'd felt before taking a nap had melted away, too.

"Six," Lucky whined, knocking once again. "Please. I have to tell you something."

"For crying out loud, hold on! I'm coming."

She hopped out of bed, and reflexively checked her shoes for mud, just in case her dream had somehow been real. They were spic-and-span, of course, except for a few scuffs.

Six opened the door to reveal a pathetic looking Lucky. He slouched, his hands in his pockets, with such a miserable expression on his face that it looked like he might burst into tears again any second.

"I know you hate me," he muttered, "but can I come in?"

She moved away from the door to let him enter, and he sauntered to the bed and sat down with a weary sigh. It took him a long time before he said anything, as if he was mulling his news around in his brain, looking for the right way to say it. Just when Six was going to tell him to come out with it, already, he took a deep breath and shut his eyes.

"I'm going to tell Miss Minutes not to give me the agent position."

Six gasped out loud, letting her mouth hang open.

"What?! But-but Lucky! That's-I-"

She couldn't force any more coherent words out of her mouth. She sat down on the bed next to him. The look in his eyes echoed a terrible defeat he'd suffered against his own conscience. It was killing him, she could tell, but he attempted to bear his self inflicted wounds bravely.

"I don't deserve it. I never deserved it. I only really wanted it in the first place because I wanted to be special. I wanted to prove I was better than everyone else. Then I wanted to keep it because I knew you'd be there too, training to be an agent with me. You are special, though, Six. You do deserve it." That made her glance up at him in surprise, though his gaze was still set firmly in the middle distance. "You're more observant, and you're a lot smarter-"

"You're not dumb, Lucky," she told him. "You're just lazy."

"I'm not lazy, I was scared," he shot back. "I was scared that I'd never do well enough, so I had to cheat to get ahead. Let's face it, I couldn't have gotten a score that high even if I'd studied with you every single hour of the day. I was never cut out to be an agent in the first place."

Six stared at him, marveling at this sudden, rare show of good conscience. She also couldn't help but wonder if there was some kind of trick underneath it, but a study of his forlorn face showed otherwise. He was absolutely telling the truth.

"Lucky," she said gently, scooting close to him and holding his hand in hers, "even if we don't end up in the same career, I know we'll find each other again."

He finally looked at her, then. "But… how?"

"You know, Mobius said that he had a-a friend-who worked as an agent with him, and then she became a judge, but they're still friends. And Mobius is still friends with Hal, too, even though he's an innovator now."

"How often do you think they see each other, though?"

She could only shrug. "I don't know. But even if we had become agents, there's no guarantee we'd be doing anything together, anyway. Mobius probably wasn't going to train us both."

He gave her a tiny smile. "That's just like you, Six. Always so pragmatic."

"You shouldn't give up, Lucky. You can still do well enough to be an agent. I feel like one of us should be, at least. Maybe you should talk to Mobius-"

"God, no. Not now." He groaned. "He's such a good agent he probably figured out it was me that squealed. I can never look him in the eye again."

She laid her head on his lean shoulder. He looked down at her in surprise, tensed up for a moment, then relaxed again, enjoying her closeness. The scent of him, some unplaceable pheromone, drifted up to her and filled her with something between comfort and excitement.

"I guess… maybe there's a chance we could have the same off-day, even if we're in different careers?" he suggested.

"Mmm-hmm."

She snuggled deeper into his collarbone and he let out a long sigh, the vibration of his chest reverberating through his whole body.

"So," he added, "We're not fighting again, right?"

She snorted, taken off guard. "No. Do you think we could go a couple days without fighting about something?"

"I don't know. That's a pretty tall order for us, isn't it?"

They gave each other a grin, which faded the longer they gazed into each other's eyes. Feeling a deep, warm stirring inside of her once again, she didn't resist as Lucky took the kiss that she'd denied him in the elevator. Why did their animosity always fade so easily? All they had to do was really look at each other before their hearts took over, no matter what their brains told them.

It didn't take long until they sank into her soft bed together, instinctively exploring each other. Some otherwise silent part of themselves sprang to life, like a seedling rising forth from underground, reaching for a new world.

The frustration from having to hold herself back dampened her passion, casting a momentary sourness over their sweet reverie. Why couldn't she just do anything she pleased, anything their bodies wanted?

With a grunt, and to Lucky's great surprise, she flipped herself over on top of him, pinning him face up on the bed, and sat up, looming over him. He looked at her, eyes wide with astonishment.

An intrusive thought popped into her mind, one that she listened to this time, instead of pushing it away. A big, crazy grin spread across her face.

"What?" Lucky giggled, grabbing her by the hips. "What's that look about?"

"You know what we should do?"

"What?"

"We should do this out there."

The grin fell abruptly. "Do you mean… out in the TVA? Out in the open?"

"Well, not right out in the terminal, dummy," she said. "Somewhere kind of half hidden… oh, like the file archives!"

Lucky started to sit up. "Six, are you completely mad? That's not even a separate room-"

"Maybe I am a little mad," she said, biting her lip seductively. She pressed more of her weight on top of him, knowing precisely what she meant to do. Lucky sucked in a breath, his eyes rolling back, then let his head loll on the pillow with a deep groan.

She leaned herself over him, holding herself up with her elbows, her short hair covering her face like a curtain around them. Six ever so gently kissed his Adam's apple, and he swallowed hard, holding his breath.

"Please?" she whispered in his ear.

Lucky couldn't seem to help the wavering grin from returning. "You're-you're like a different person, Six," he said, his voice cracking awkwardly for a moment. "I like it."

Far from frightening or offending her, the idea gave her a bit of a thrill, somehow.

The grin stayed on his face, then spread all the way across. "Okay. Let's do it."

She squealed with excitement and rolled off of him. They both sprang from her bed, straightened themselves up as best they could, then tried not to run to the elevator. Once they boarded, though, their hands were all over each other once again.

To her delight, he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up, pressing his mouth hard into hers. She wrapped her legs around his waist. They giggled as they kissed, sloppily, having contorted themselves into a tangle of limbs, not caring in the slightest if anyone else saw. Suddenly, Lucky lost his balance. They both yelped, then burst into laughter as he fell forwards, into the wall of the elevator, knocking all the breath out of Six. He let her slide down to the floor, still gasping for air. It was all so wonderfully, deliciously ridiculous, breaking all the rules in ways she bet no one else had even thought of, yet. Nothing could frighten her away from him: not the threat of a demerit, or maintenance, or anything else Miss Minutes could do. Hope and joy pulsed through her, along with adrenaline and pheromones. Six finally stopped laughing, stood back up, and held onto him, burying her face in his chest. She'd never let go of him, ever, no matter what.

When they reached the main terminal they had to force themselves to act normal once again, and power-walked down the hallways, with Six leading the way. The file archive, unlike the film archives and storage warehouse, was sort of a building of its own, a pyramid-shaped library attached to the rest of the TVA by long, bridgelike hallways, standing proudly by itself under the Timekeeper statue. Surely, it had to be swarming with archivists, but there were lots of nooks and crannies to hide in. It was the thrill of perhaps getting caught that set her heart racing in the first place.

Holding hands whenever they felt the urge to do so, they wandered blissfully through the endless aisles of records, not caring where they'd end up. They successfully dodged several archivists, ducking between the aisles and holding their breath every time one of them passed, running through the stairwells and shushing each other, until they found themselves near the top of the pointed archives. The tall aisles on the inside, which reached nearly all the way to the ceiling, were encased by the slightly shorter ones along the outside, making a nice little fortress for them to hide out in.

"Over here!" Six whispered, ducking between two aisles. He found her, rushed to her eagerly, squished her against the spines of the thick manilla folders. She reciprocated, wrapping her leg around his thigh. The only sound in the whole place were their deep breaths, the gentle smacking of their lips in the dim light.

Before they knew it, they were on the floor together, both feeling as if they were ready to burst with excitement. She tossed her short hair back and suppressed a giggle.

"You know," Six whispered between kisses, "I actually yelled at Miss Minutes today."

Lucky's eyebrows shot up. "What? And she didn't give you a demerit?" She shook her head, and he let out a short breath of astonishment. "Wow. You really are bad."

They went back at each other, even more fervently than before. Six had never felt anything so beautiful happening inside of her. It was as if every moment up until then had been painted in gray, dull hues, like the Viscera, and now someone had splashed a vibrant, messy rainbow of color all over her life. She felt beautiful, and almost manically happy, and even powerful, somehow. Like she'd created part of herself, just like when she had made her own name. She was her own creation, not the Timekeeper's. She followed her own rules, not Miss Minutes'.

Suddenly, Lucky stopped kissing her and brought her close, burying his face in her chest.

"I think I understand now, Six," he murmured against her skin.

"Understand what?"

"That feeling you were talking about. You remember. Like… there's no words for how deep this feeling goes. It's an endless spring of-of-I don't know." He grumbled the last bit and pressed his face against her body with a kiss so hard, it felt like he was trying to become part of her. "It's so beautiful that it hurts."

"It's love," she whispered into his dark hair.

"Hmm?"

"That's what the feeling is called. It's love, I think."

"Love," he repeated quietly to himself. "But it's such a small word, and such a huge feeling. Are you sure that's right?"

"Yes," she said, bringing his face back up to her. "I know it is."

She froze for a moment, possessed with a sudden, overwhelming urge from the depths of her soul, even stronger than what her body wanted to do.

"Lucky," she continued, "even if we never saw each other again-"

"Don't say that!" he hissed.

"Hypothetically. If we never saw each other again, I would never, ever forget you. I love you."

He took a deep breath before quietly answering, "I love you, too."

Their kisses resumed, but without the eager, immature urgency that they'd had before. Their movements were slow, languid, truly enjoying each other's warmth, treasuring each breath and every centimeter of skin they could get their hands on. Six felt something change between them, like an unspoken demand, their needs understood implicitly. Lucky's hands went to her shirt. He slowly loosened her tie, fumbled with the little buttons.

He'd unbuttoned only two of them before Six felt something else in the room change. She held her breath, went perfectly quiet, and could have sworn she still heard two people breathing.

"Lucky," she whispered, placing a hand on his hands, which were working on the third button.

He stopped, but didn't seem like he was hearing what she was. He stared at her, uncomprehending.

The almost imperceptible presence was coming from the bottom of the shelf of files. Her heart pounding with fear instead of excitement, she decided to discover whatever it was quickly, like ripping off a bandage.

Six whipped her head around. To her terror, a blue eye was staring back at her from a gap between the manilla folders. She screamed, then bit her tongue, remembering to keep quiet. The eye vanished, and its owner whispered "Shit!" to himself.

"What? What is it?" Lucky asked.

"There's a guy over there!" she rasped. She sprang up, holding her blouse closed with one hand, then ran to the edge of the aisle and to the other side, leaving Lucky bewildered on the floor.

The sound of scurrying footsteps ran across the carpet, already several aisles away. She heard one more faint refrain of, "Shit!", before the footsteps faded and disappeared.

"Six?"

Lucky had snuck up behind her and nearly scared her out of her skin, even though he'd only whispered.

"He's gone," she said, cautiously making her way down the aisle, as if he was somehow going to spring out again. With shaking hands, she buttoned her shirt back up and straightened her tie.

"Do you think he saw what we were doing?"

"Yeah," she said, with a roll of her eyes, "I think he got his gross little peep show. I don't know how long he was staring at us, though."

Lucky groaned. "This was your idea, Six. You thought it'd be fun if we did this out here. You can't be surprised when we get caught. We could have just stayed nice and safe in your room, but no…"

She was no longer listening to him. A little square laying on the floor caught her eye; a photograph, a mugshot of a very unhappy looking man in a beige jumpsuit. She picked it up and recognized it as a photo of a variant from one of the files. The crudely typed number on the bottom read 'J83355'. Perhaps it had fallen out of its file and onto the floor when the peeping tom had been looking at them, but it didn't seem to match any of the files on the shelves. The enormous shelf to her right went from J70001 to J75000, and the one to her left went from J75001 to J80000. She noticed, too, that a few of the files were missing, or clumsily shoved back into their places.

Lucky was finally quiet, and looked over her shoulder to stare at the photo, as well.

"Who's that?"

"Some variant," she murmured. The slightly overweight human man had dark, brown eyes, and wore an expression somewhere between fear and anger. His thick, dark brows were scrunched together under a scruffy head of black hair. He wore a blue cap with the words 'Joe Deare' printed on it in orange letters, and his five o' clock shadow had grown into nearly a beard.

Six squinted hard at the photo. Something about him was so… oddly familiar.

"Hey, Six?" said Lucky, squinting just as hard at the photo as she was. "You know what? If that guy had white hair, and his eyes were a little different, and he was skinnier, don't you think he'd look sort of like-"

"Mobius?" she finished. He nodded. They stared at it together, mesmerized. Of course, Mobius couldn't have a brother. It must have been a coincidence. A very, very weird one.

Six flipped the photo over, and was even more amazed by what she found on the back. Scratched into every available space were the penciled-in scribbles of a madman. She held the photo in the best light for both her and Lucky to try to make out what it said. The parts of the chicken scratch they could read, though, seemed like utter nonsense, just a bunch of numbers and weird questions.

833+55=888✓

Number match, wrong face

Name - Jeoff Boid, familiar? Kind of?

Hat match! No! Green hat, yellow letters, same company?

Wanted for murder, arson (Really?)

Wrong one, closer though!

Six and Lucky stood there in silence, staring at each other.

"D-do you think we should tell someone, or go looking for the file, or…" Six trailed off as Lucky shook his head, his green eyes wide.

"I have no idea, Six," he muttered. "I kind of just want to go back to our dorm-"

"Are you kidding me?" she said, trying to keep her voice down. "This is big! I mean, I have no idea what it is, but it means something, doesn't it?"

"Do you actually want to know what it means?"

"Of course I do! Why don't you?"

"Because… what if the answer is scarier than the question? Or what if we get accused of stealing from the archives, and get in trouble? Anyone we showed it to would want to know what we were doing at the top of the archives in the first place."

They looked at each other again, neither of them backing down. She'd been silly to assume that he thought they were the same person. If they'd ever acted similarly, they'd diverged from each other somewhere within the last day.

"I'm not afraid anymore, Lucky," she said, chin raised proudly. "And if you are… well, that's your problem."

She started to leave, but Lucky grabbed her hand.

"I just don't want anything bad to happen to you," he pleaded. "I'm scared that Miss Minutes is going to figure things out, one way or another, or if you made her really mad, she could go looking for reasons to get you in trouble. I… I just want you to be okay."

Those simple words echoed from somewhere deep in her mind, giving her pause. She thought of the dream woman again, making her promise, holding their hands together on top of her chest.

"He'd rip his own heart out for you."

She took a deep sigh. Would he, though? Why did she feel compelled to give him chances he didn't deserve? Maybe that was something that love was supposed to do. Still, she couldn't simply let him cower for the rest of the time they had together.

"I'm going to tell Mobius," she said finally. "Come with me, explain what happened, and apologize to him."

He sucked in a breath. "No, I can't do that! I-" He stopped and gave her such an imploring look that she couldn't break her gaze from him. Then, Lucky groaned and rubbed his face with both hands… as if she was the one being unreasonable.

"I can't do it right now," he grumbled, "he must know that I was the one who leaked everyone's names. Or he'll figure it out soon. Let's wait a little while…"

"How long, then? Until we're already out of class?"

"No. A few days, so he can cool down."

"You don't even know if he's angry!"

"He has to be. I mean, you nearly killed me."

That made her chortle, despite herself. With a sidelong look, she nodded.

"Okay. Fine, I'll let you build up your nerve. But I'm holding you to it. If you put it off any longer, I'll go to him myself and tell him everything."

"That's fair, I guess."

She stuffed the photograph in her pocket and took his wrist, without even thinking, and led him quickly down the aisle.

"That reminds me, there was something I wanted to show you. But, Six?"

"Yeah?" she whispered, distracted, looking out for any stray archivists.

"You have to promise not to get mad at me."

She tightened her grip on his arm and shot him a glare.

"I didn't hurt anyone, promise."

"What did you do?"

"I just… used the temporal soul scanning machine a little bit, that's all."

She rolled her eyes and scoffed. "Lucky! I thought you were afraid of getting in trouble, now?"

"I did this before Miss Minutes questioned me for an hour."

"Well, it's your ass on the line, I guess… why are you compelled to break everything you touch?"

"I didn't break it!" he laughed. "Not this time. I think."

They hurried down the aisles and found the stairwell, taking the stairs two by two, both of them giggling at each other once again.