Author's Note: Hello and welcome to the sixth installment of "Cross". Before we begin, I'd like to take a minute and thank everyone who read the last chapter and those that reviewed, Inwe[z]247, Genius-626, Faith-Catherine, MythStar Black Dragon, VoloDiNotte, Trinideanfan, FireChildSlytherin5, saichick and Beautiful Liar Please Save Me. Also, I'd like to thank everyone who added this story to their favorites/author alerts. I do hope you enjoy this chapter!

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Priest.

Part VI Scars

The shack sat in the shadow of a ghost town. It was a skeletal relic, a reminder of the years that had followed the end of the War, the days when hope had flourished in abundance and flowered in the Wastelands. Boomtowns were common then, small cities that sprang up overnight, bustling with commerce and something very like promise. But that was before people realized that they didn't have any money to spend. That was before the world turned grey again and life became hard, with or without vampires. Priestess remembered those days, but she didn't like to think about them.

The night was already old when she stopped her motorcycle next to the shack, which was little more than a lean-to with pitted walls and a roof that had partially caved in. Signs of a campfire, charred soil, a few flame-blackened stones and faded ashes, told her that the place had recently played host to other weary travelers. People who needed the false comfort of having walls around them. People who came from the cities and weren't used the desolation and the wide emptiness of the Wastelands. People who were frightened and had good reason to be frightened of what awaited them in the dark, what prowled and stalked and hunted in the shielding gloom.

It even bothered Priestess sometimes, as she stood out in the open, seeing the world in shades of taupe and grey and occasionally black. Hearing the wind, which always sounded sad, wail and scream as it twisted through the far-off peaks and streaked through the flatlands.

Tonight, she realized, was one of those nights. A time of vulnerability. Of that faint, fluttering in her ribcage that pulsed with uncertainty.

And she was uncertain now, looking at the sad shack with its concave roof and wind-beaten walls. Doubtful.

But she would have to make due…for a while, at least. Until the night passed and the day arrived. Until she could stand in the sun and feel the warm rays dry the damp worry that clung to her like a second skin.

A worry that was potent and unrelenting. A worry that had evolved into raw fear.

Priest was injured. Badly.

A potent mixture of blood loss and fever had left him unable to sit upright on his own motorcycle and Priestess had been forced abandon his transport as they went in search for shelter. Now he was seated on her vehicle, his chest pressed to her shoulder blades, his head rolling loosely on his neck. She could feel him breathing. It was almost pleasant, in a deceptive sort way, to have him close to her, closer than they had been in so many long years

But there was blood on his brow and on his shoulder and he was sweating. Burning with fever.

And Priestess fearedthat she might have no way to help him, not out here, not in the dark, not in the night.

She missed the sun.

Stepping off her motorcycle, she braced her arms on Priest's chest. His body, his hard muscles and calloused flesh and heavy bones felt like dead weight, the burden of a corpse. A thick vein throbbed in his temple.

"Easy," Priestess told him, her fingers curling under his arms. She pulled him away from the motorcycle and into the shack. His boot heels made thin tracks in the sand. His coat dragged against the sun-bleached pebbles and sent them scattering. And the moon was unkind, because it showed her everything. Showed her his face and how his eyes were clenched and how his lips moved but no words came out.

She brought him into the shack and laid him on the floor and then she paused, one hand fisted in her sweaty hair.

Don't die. Don't die. Please, don't die.

Priest stirred. "Shannon," he said.

She tried to ignore the pain that welled up within her, the treacherous rush of jealousy, yes, jealousy, that made her pathetic. Envy was a sin, after all. A deadly sin.

Her lips were wet and she tasted salt. Sweat or tears? It didn't matter.

Priestess crept forward on her knees, cobwebs dusting her scalp, her eyes blinded by the dust motes that polluted the scant rays of moonlight that managed to slip inside the shack. She laid her hands on Priest's collar, pulling the cloth away to reveal the flesh. It was mottled with bruises and blood and broken veins. He had a deep gash in his shoulder and he was bleeding. It would need more than a bandage.

"Cauterization," she said, feeling utterly hopeless. She would have to start a fire.

The soles of her boots scratched against the rough-hewn floorboards, making a sound that mimicked the devious claws of rats and other unwelcome vermin.

Priest tensed at the noise, his eyes opening, the lids heavy and drooping. But the small slivers of his irises that Priestess could see were a milky blue, the color of the sky when it looked like it would rain but never did. Because it never rained. Not anymore.

Priestess thought he would say something to her, some terse, caustic phrase. Some order or command or question. But Priest only watched her and she wondered if he really knew who she was, or rather, who she was not.

Shannon.

"I'm going to clean your wound," she said. Her canteen, which she kept in the saddlebag strapped to her motorcycle, was already half-empty, but she would risk the precious water now, if only to save him.

She needed to save him. And there were no bandages in the shack. No clean gauze. No sutures and needle. No antiseptic.

Just ghosts, she told herself as she went to fetch her water. Just a lot of ghosts.

She hated the way her hands shook when she plucked the metal top off her canteen. There was moisture on the rim and it turned the dust on her fingers to wet grit. It made her feel unclean.

Priest moved again when she splashed water on his wound. His head, which had been resting on one of the rotten walls, lifted and he glanced at his shoulder, his expression appraising.

Priestess tried to read his eyes, but realized that she could not. There had been a time when they had been open with each other. A time when she could feel what he was thinking and that understanding had been a gift, something she had never entirely recognized until it was lost.

Like now.

"It is ugly," Priest said, his chin crushed against his collarbone as he tried to get a better look at the gash. "Another scar."

"What's one more?" she asked him, shaking more water from the canteen, as much as she dared. She had no high expectations of the Wastelands. There were no hidden groves of fragrant trees and clear, cold streams. No springs of life-giving water. No rivers. No lakes. No oceans.

And dying of thirst was terrible, even worse than succumbing to blood loss.

She stuck the cap back into the canteen, her dry tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth already. "What's one more scar?" Priestess repeated. "We weren't bred for vanity."

"Scars," Priest uttered. He tried to touch the wound, but she stopped him, pulling his hand away like a child's and pressing it back against his chest.

"We have to keep it clean," she said. "Infection."

But his eyes were rolling back into his head, a testament to delirium and the crude vulnerability it brought. "I've been thinking," he said, his words slurring together, his voice losing its esteem until Priestess almost wished he would stay silent.

"Maybe you've been dreaming," she said, noticing the round beads of sweat that dotted his temples, the little, iridescent droplets of liquid pain and weakness.

Because he was weak now, his body soft and giving, his lips creasing into something that resembled a quiet, sad smile.

"Not dreaming," Priest said. He raised his hand again and for a moment, Priestess thought he was going to pick at his wound.

But he did not.

He touched her face instead, his fingertips coming to rest in the delicate space between her forehead and her right eye, lingering, longing, whispering across her flesh.

It was too much. She had to pull away.

Priest let his hand fall back to his chest where it laid on the black cloth of his shirt, a pale, wilted spider with five trembling legs. "Not dreaming," he said, "but remembering. Do you remember, Priestess? When we were younger? There is something about youth…something beautiful. We were beautiful…for a time."

"And not now?" she asked, concerned when she felt the skin around her cheeks tighten as her jaw clenched. "Am I not beautiful now?"

She didn't know why she cared. She shouldn't. Vanity was not for them, it never had been. But beauty, ah beauty.

Lucy was beautiful. Like her mother, probably. A vision of comforting loveliness. Of smiling lips and soft skin that wasn't scarred. Like Shannon.

Shannon had been beautiful. And Priestess was…

Never mind.

"We haven't," Priest began, but paused to clear his throat with a lung-shaking cough. "We haven't been beautiful for a while."

Priestess didn't know why, but for some reason, she felt disappointed.

"I remember other things," she said, staring at the yawning slash on Priest's shoulder, the little ravine of dribbling, oozing red, "from when we were young. I remember how close I felt to you. How we moved and breathed and lived and it was almost…I don't know…almost as if we were one. And the closeness frightened me sometimes. Did it frighten you?"

Priest didn't say anything for a moment. He shut his eyes, the lids fluttering, his white lashes contrasted against the bruised hue of his skin. "We were very close," he said at length. "We would sit in that iron-walled courtyard by the chapel, shoulder-to-shoulder, our flanks pressed against each other. I could feel you breathing. It was pleasant…for a while, anyway."

"For a while," Priestess echoed. Not now, her mind added.

Suddenly, she felt like she needed to get away from him. She stood, her head coming within a few inches of the sagging roof.

"Fire," she told him. "I'm going to start a fire and then I will cauterize your wound."

Priestess turned to go, but his hand caught on the hem of her coat, pulling weakly. She could have broken free. She could have ignored him. She could have left. But she did not.

Looking back over her shoulder, she saw Priest struggling to sit up, his eyes now wide with some unfamiliar glint. Fear, she wondered. Is it fear?

"I'm sorry," he said, "but I've kept secrets from you."

Yes, it was fear. Tempered by insecurity, by grief. And Priestess herself became frightened. "You're delirious," she said.

Priest groaned, a low, death-rattle of a sound, and released her coat as he fell back, his head thudding as it hit the wall. "Just tell me," he said and there was a horrible note of begging in his voice, "just tell me…were you jealous?"

Priestess's tongue clicked against her teeth, the taste of the desert on her lips. All parched sand and emptiness. She swallowed. "Of Shannon, you mean?"

But Priest only shook his head, his brow scorched with unrelenting, maddening fever. "No," he said. "Not Shannon."

Author's Note: Thanks so much for reading! If you have a free moment, please leave a review. I'd absolutely love to hear from you.

The next chapter is in the works and should be posted in a week. Until then, take care and be well!