"I don't feel comfortable resuming my Huntsmistress duties at this time," Rose told Nicholas and Kyle in response to the question that Kyle had just asked her. "I am still healing drastically, and I don't feel that I remember the Clan the way I should. In fact, I still have no real memories of this place at all. I think that the best course of action would be for me to heal but work closely with the two of you – observe your duties and so forth – and try to regain my memory while I'm at it. If I don't remember, at least I'm learning. Do you agree?"

The duo nodded.

In truth, Rose was very anxious to get back to work. Huntsdoctor Melinda had consented to let her go around the Huntsclan in a wheelchair, pushed by either Nicholas or Kyle. They had brought her up to the office, at her request, and she'd immediately experienced an itch to get back to work. She had forgotten just how powerful this office could make a person feel. She was at the top of the world with an army of thousands to be rallied at her slightest command; it could make anyone feel drunk with authority.

"Are you hungry, Rose?" Kyle asked, tentatively. "It's nearing lunch time and you did sleep all morning."

"Lunch …" Rose murmured. "Yes, but I don't wish to eat with the other Clan members. I feel as though they would stare."

She pretended as though she were self-conscious as she ducked her head and touched some of her newly acquired scars. The announcement that she was alive had been made late yesterday – causing quite the commotion. Rose had been behind the curtain for it, listening but not participating. Nicholas and Kyle had gotten quite the lecture from a number of Branch Leaders that were questioning them on the fact that they had pronounced her dead only weeks before! She rather enjoyed hearing them get chewed out – she liked it when people who weren't her were getting yelled at.

As she had hoped, Nicholas and Kyle immediately began gushing over her after she'd spoken.

"Oh, well, don't worry about that!" Nicholas cried.

"Absolutely," Kyle agreed. "We can bring lunch to your room – whatever you want the chefs to make."

Rose glanced out the window, at the spectacular view of New York. The beauty of the skyline made her heart throb.

"Would it be possible for me to eat lunch up here?" Rose asked, peeking at them through her lashes, knowing very well that they would not deny her what she wanted. "I … I don't want to leave the view just yet."

As she had expected, they nearly fell over themselves to do what she wanted.

"Of course!" They chorused.

"Thank you," she murmured. "You've been so nice to me; I don't know how to thank you."

Nicholas blushed and Kyle stuttered, "Aw, Rose, don't say that. If it had happened to us you would have gone above and beyond."

"And you don't have to thank us," Nicholas added. "You know we love you – you're like the big sister we never knew we wanted."

"Even if you're a drill sergeant when we're in the training arena," Kyle joked with a wink.

Rose smiled at his joke, even though she hadn't initially intended to.

"What did you want for lunch?" Nicholas asked, bringing the attention back to Rose's needs.

"Just a sandwich," she requested, "And, also, a cup of tea?"

"I'll get the sandwich, you get the tea?" Kyle asked Nicholas, instantly divvying up the tasks.

"Are you all right on your own?"

"Of course," Rose said in response to Nicholas' silly question. "I'll just be sitting here, looking down at all the people walking by … Not much trouble to be found there, is there?"

Nicholas shook his head. "We'll be back as soon as we can."

"Don't rush," Rose urged them. "I'll be fine on my own for a few minutes."

With those words, Nicholas and Kyle ducked out of the room. Rose, with her advanced hearing, listened carefully as they walked away. Once their footsteps were faint enough that she knew they couldn't hear her, Rose picked up the phone in the office and dialled the number that she had been forced to remember.

"Hello, Master," she breathed into the phone when he picked up.

"Huntsgirl," he returned in his deep voice. "How are things going?"

"As we expected but, Master, I find it so awkward to be with the dragon. I don't know what to say to him – and I especially don't know how to 'love' him. He just seems so broken over the whole thing. I just … I need advice on how to get through to him."

"Hmm," Theron mused, wondering just what to tell her. He didn't want her to be too loving and too compassionate with the dragon, lest she return to her old ways – where she really did love him and she really did want the Clan to help magical creatures instead of destroying them. "Spend time with him; see what he wants from you. Pay attention to non-verbal cues. The beauty of our plan is that he believes you were kept in some dank hell hole – he believes you went through a terrible trauma. He's not expecting you to be the same as you were before you disappeared. I wouldn't worry about it, as long as you don't rouse suspicion."

"All right," Rose murmured, not feeling as though she knew any more than she had before the call but knowing that Master had done his best to help her, just as he always did. "Thank you, Master."

"You're welcome, Huntsgirl. Goodbye."

"Goodbye, Master," Rose sighed and hung up the phone.

She had just turned back to the window – where she was supposed to be – when Kyle and Nicholas burst back into the office, arms laden with food trays.

(-.-)

"Rose is back?" Haley squeaked, looking back up at Jake. "That's why you weren't at supper yesterday night?"

Jake nodded.

"Oh!" Haley exclaimed, throwing her arms around her older brother. "I'm so happy for you, Jake! Is she okay?"

"All right," Jake told her. "She's hurt and she's … different."

Haley leaned back, her sharp intuition picking up on the negative aspect of the word. "What do you mean 'different'?" She questioned.

Jake shrugged, not sure how to explain it but something was different. The differences went beyond the trauma that Rose bore on her body; the differences went beyond the expected tiny bout of awkwardness sure to be between them after such a long separation. He couldn't put his finger on it, but Rose was different. It wasn't a tiny something - a little quirk that was off but would snap back into place with a little time to heal - it was all of her.

Jake could feel it.

It would be so easy to chalk up the difference to Rose's memory loss. Once she had enough exposure to her old world, once she fell back into her routine and her memory returned, then the difference would blow away and Jake would never have to think of it again; that's what Jake wished would happen, but somehow, he didn't think that it would.

For one thing, the memory loss just plain bothered him and he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it wasn't because Rose had no memory. She remembered him; if she had forgotten him that would have killed him. But she hadn't. She had forgotten literally everything else – he'd sat next to her side as she asked about her name, her age, Kyle and Nicholas, who she was in the world, her parents, how she had come to be who she was – but never once had she asked a question about him, about their relationship, about anything. He hated to be suspicious – wished he could call it the miracle of love – but suspicious he was.

Because he knew Rose.

When their relationship had first begun, when he had been completely nonverbal, they'd learned to read each other's body language. That was how he had communicated; Rose had learned what gesture meant what, what facial expression went with which emotion. She'd responded to him as though he had actually been speaking to him. Jake had absorbed her in return. All of those long days in class when he didn't do anything but stare at her, all of those splendid hours together when he had learned every nuance of her, he had learned her body language so well that he could imitate and translate it just as well as she could his.

So after the initial fear her words had caused, after the initial relief that she knew his name, when Jake had sat there and listened as she told Nicholas and Kyle that she didn't remember anything, he didn't believe her. When Rose encountered something unknown, her eyes looked a certain way – there was a certain determination to know it and a certain shame that she didn't. When Rose lied – because he had watched her lie to him in the past – there was tightening in her neck, particularly around the bottoms of her ears.

Her neck was tight when she had talked to Nicholas and Kyle.

"Jake," Haley pressed, bringing him out of his musings, "How is Rose different?"

"I …" He couldn't put his thoughts in his words; couldn't admit his suspicions, "can't explain."

"Hmm," Haley sighed. "Well, I'm sure it's nothing Jake. In time, she'll go back to being who you remembered."

He hoped so, he really hoped so. He didn't know what he would do otherwise.

(-.-)

"Stop brooding," Theron ordered gruffly.

The Dark Dragon snorted. "She's already calling you for help! She's only been away from you for what, two days? This plan is useless!"

"It's not useless! Do not underestimate the Huntsgirl. She was created perfectly. She's deadly, charismatic, and motivated. There is no way she can fail."

The Dark Dragon rolled his eyes again. "I think you are overestimating the Huntsgirl. She is, after all, just a girl; barely twenty."

"She has done far more than most," Theron said defensively. "She will do this as well. She is too loyal to me – she wouldn't dare fail."

"Loyal," The Dark Dragon drawled, sarcasm dripping from every intonation put on the word. "So loyal that she was willing to sentence you to death last time, oh beloved Huntsmaster? She thought you were dead until you stole her from that alley. She picked her love of a dragon – one of your scorned magical creatures – over her love of you; that doesn't seem very loyal to me."

Theron glared at The Dark Dragon. Insufferable creature, he thought, wishing that he could just rid himself of the abomination now. But he couldn't. He needed The Dark Dragon to connect him to the Dragon Council, so that he could have an inside view of the inner workings of that world. He also needed to be prepared to warn the Huntsgirl if any suspicions were brought up to the Council. Somehow, he didn't think there would be suspicious. The Huntsgirl was far too good to make anyone suspicious of her; she knew what parts she had to play and she knew how to play them well.

"She was brainwashed," Theron stated, though even he noticed how his voice wavered with doubt.

"Kind of like how you brainwashed her into thinking that she was loyal to you again; that she adored you and you alone?" The Dark Dragon demanded.

"No!" The Huntsmaster spat. "I did not brainwash her! I freed her!"

The Dark Dragon tilted his chin arrogantly. "I doubt that," he murmured to himself. Then, "Fine. I don't wish to fight about this anymore. I'm not so dense as to think that our partnership is perfect but I know that we both need it – you to recapture your Huntsclan and your girl and I so that I can watch Jacob Long die."

Theron quirked his eyebrow at the brutal honesty of the creature. "We'll both win in the end," he said easily, though he knew that he'd be the only winner.

I don't own anything recognizable.

~TLL~