He didn't know what he was asking for. He wanted her to take a flying leap off a cliff purely on faith that he would catch her before she hit the ground. She had been thinking more along the lines of dipping her toes in the water and keeping a lookout for sharks.
Everything, he'd said. She wondered if he had any idea of how dangerous everything seemed to her. How little confidence she had in her own judgment, how every emotion, every move, every decision was fraught with uncertainty.
The chains of her past weighed heavily upon her still; she could practically feel that manacle cinched about her ankle once more, dragging her down, pinning her in place. She was no freer now than she had been the last three years. Even relieved of the iron cuff, she had made little progress. It was as if her wings had been clipped, and she was afraid to even try what she was certain would be a futile attempt at flight.
She'd left the tavern behind, but it had not left her. The lessons she had learned chattered without cease at the back of her mind, turning everything sour and grey. She didn't know if she'd ever escape them, but…with Balthier, they were a bit quieter, a bit dimmer. Less of a dull roar and more of an insidious whisper.
She had spent so long steeped in misery, collecting only what gil she could scrounge and scratch marks upon a wall to mark the passing days, that she had forgotten how to be happy. It seemed to her now an ephemeral thing, a mirage in the desert – always slipping through her fingers before she could grasp it until at last she had stopped trying. It was self-preservation, really; that old staple of her youth upon which she had relied for so long. To achieve a measure of peace, she had only had to cease wanting things she knew she could not have.
Now it dangled before her once again, ostensibly there for the taking, but the sheer effort it would take to have faith in it was staggering. And it had never seemed so close before – but experience had taught her not even to reach for it, to simply let her eyes slide away and pretend she hadn't noticed it at all. If it proved as fickle and faithless as it had in the past, it would destroy her.
But despite it all, she wanted to believe. She wanted to believe in that not-too-distant happiness, the one she could almost glimpse rising on the horizon. The happiness that waited in spite of everything, the kind of happiness that could outlast the end of the world.
Real chains might be removed with something so simple as a key, but the phantom ones that dragged on her were a different beast entirely. She could only hope that she would find the strength to cast them off herself before they became a permanent fixture, destroying any chance at happiness she might someday find the courage to pursue. And she would have to do her own due diligence and chip away at the links as best she could.
She suspected Balthier would be only too happy to lend his assistance – if her constant vacillation didn't drive him away before she could work up the courage to request it.
Balthier had been attempting to sleep, with no success – the scent of her citrus soap lingered upon his pillows and clung to his sheets, but they lacked the warmth of her skin, and he had grown accustomed to the press of her body against his, her hair tickling his face, her arm draped across his chest. He'd finally given up and had simply slung an arm over his eyes, waiting for dawn to come.
Though the door didn't make so much as creak as it slid open, Balthier was aware of her presence even before the faint light from the hallway crept across the floor. He always knew when she was close, somehow, with a sort of instinctual awareness.
He heard the soft click of the door closing, the pad of her bare feet across the wood floor. She paused at the edge of the bed, and there was the puff of her breath on a heavy exhale.
"Are you still mad at me?" she asked in an uncertain murmur.
"Yes," he growled. She was close enough that he could smell her soap; not the flat remnants of it that his pillows carried, but the sweet tang warmed by the heat of her skin.
"Oh." It was just a muted whisper, almost swallowed up into silence before it reached his ears. She drew in a shaky breath. "I'm sorry; I shouldn't have bothered you."
He snatched at her wrist before she could turn away. "Yes, I'm still angry," he reiterated. "But…as I cannot seem to sleep without you, you might as well stay."
For a moment he thought she would refuse, would turn tail and run – but apparently she was made of sterner stuff than she once had been. Despite the hesitance with which she had approached him, she did not shy away, even in the face of his anger, and he wondered if he had in fact earned a measure of her trust.
He moved over to make room for her as she shed her clothing, and lifted the covers for her to climb underneath. Her head settled onto the pillow beside his, and for a few moments she lay, still and quiet, separated entirely from him by some inches. There was only the soft sigh of her breath, the scent of her hair, and the gradual warming of the covers beside him to attest to her presence at all.
By slow degrees she shifted, encroaching upon the space that separated them. At last she was close enough that her hair brushed his shoulder, and he felt the covers move as she reached out her hand and tentatively placed it on his chest.
She thought she would be rebuffed, he realized. She had been testing the waters, trying to reason out for herself where his invisible line had been drawn so as not to stumble past it and risk a humiliating set-down. She wanted to be close to him as much as he wanted to be close to her. That much, at least, he could take heart in.
She drew back abruptly when he moved, likely thinking she had gone a step too far, pulling away to surrender back to him the space that she had gained.
"Stop that," he said, as she fluffed the blankets around herself in an insulating layer, crumpling them between the two of them to add another barrier. He fished beneath the blankets for her, sliding his arm over her waist and pressing it against her back, dragging her across the bed until she hitched up against him with a small sound of surprise. Settling onto his back, he caught her hand in his, adjusting her arm across his chest. Her head found that perfect place in the curve of his shoulder, and he felt her breath escape on a sigh of relief.
He turned his head, brushing a kiss to her forehead. "I always want you here," he said. "Even when I'm angry."
She made a contented sound in the back of her throat and turned her face against his shoulder. "I didn't mean to make you angry," she murmured, her voice muffled against him.
"I know." He slid his arm beneath her, wrapping it around her to trail his fingers along her side.
"I don't want to be a coward." Her voice was at once plaintive and aggravated. "I don't know how not to be." Her fingernails scraped across his chest with a light pressure. "I don't want you to think that I don't trust you – it's just that I don't trust anyone. I don't know how anymore."
"You don't trust yourself," he corrected gently.
She hesitated a moment, her fingers stilling on his chest. At last she nodded, heaving a great sigh. "I have choices now that I thought I'd never have," she said in a dull tone. "But I've forgotten how to make them. I can't see past the present. I don't know how to unlearn living a day at a time, how to start thinking about the future instead."
"Burdened with an overabundance of choices," he murmured. "I suppose it must be daunting." Her cheek rubbed his shoulder as she nodded. He said, "Suppose you reduce them down to their most basic components. There are any number of things you might do, but they all hinge upon two options: do you stay with me, or do you go your own way?"
"Stay," she said immediately. "I like it here." Her fingertips drummed a delicate rhythm upon his chest. And though she left it unsaid, he knew that she meant that she liked being with him.
Unconsciously his fingers had traveled back up her arm to sift through the soft blond hank of hair that had slipped over her shoulder, rubbing it between them. "Not so difficult after all, is it?" he asked.
Her breath puffed out, warm on his throat. Her hand came to a rest, flattening over his heart as if the steady beat of it beneath her palm was soothing. "I can't be wrong again," she said at last, in a pained whisper. "I really don't think I could take it."
There was nothing he could say to mitigate that fear, nothing he could do except to give her time to acclimate herself, to find her direction. Too often recently she had been sent reeling, and if she felt compelled to grasp for whatever sense of stability she could, it was only to be expected.
Fran had suggested that he ought to acquire a modicum of patience. And yet, it wasn't in his nature to leave matters unsettled. A pirate to the core, he had become accustomed to taking – to helping himself to whatever opportunities crossed his path, and damning the consequences. Penelo was not an object to be snatched up; she required delicate handling, a light touch, and most important of all, the time and space to come to a decision on her own. Pressure on his part would only cast her once again beneath an avalanche of uncertainty.
"I do love you," she murmured.
"But not enough," he countered dryly. "Not nearly enough." He turned, rolling her to her back, pausing to brush her hair away from her face before he levered himself over her. He was gratified to note that she shifted to accommodate him, wriggling within the cage of his arms until she settled with a sigh. He braced himself on one forearm, slid his free hand beneath her neck. "I wish that you could see yourself as I do," he said.
Even in the darkness, he could see the face she pulled, scrunching her nose up in denial. "I'm not special," she said flatly, not fishing for compliments but instead stating facts as she saw them. "I pass for fair at best. We both know you could do better. Have done better, I should probably say."
He chuckled, touching his forehead to hers. "Agree to disagree," he said. "But that isn't what I meant."
Her hands settled on his shoulders, tracing lazy patterns with her fingertips. Brows drawn, she said, "I don't understand."
"When first we met," he said, "I thought you were perhaps the only truly decent person I'd encountered in the whole of my life."
She wriggled a bit, as if uncomfortable with the praise. "You know, I always thought you hated me, at least a little. You made it pretty clear that you didn't want me around."
"I didn't," he said, chuckling as she made an irritated sound in the back of her throat. "You were dangerous. And…I didn't want you in the line of fire. I didn't want you to see the sort of brutality and bloodshed that we were certain to experience. I didn't want it to touch you, to change you. And yet, you were determined to wade straight into the thick of it anyway."
"I had to," she said, a touch defensively. "I couldn't –"
"I know," he said. "Do you know, you were the only one of us with noble intentions? You came out of love and loyalty alone. Not for revenge or reward or glory. You were better than all of us. You were…" He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. "Bright," he concluded. "You were the light leading us through the darkness. You fostered camaraderie between the rest of us, motley crew that we were. You bolstered flagging spirits more times than I could possibly count. You held us all together when we might've floundered."
She pursed her lips, puffed out a dismissive breath. "I think you're giving me too much credit."
"And I think you give yourself too little." He dipped to plant a swift kiss at the corner of her mouth. "You had a brave heart, an adventurous spirit, inexhaustible enthusiasm, and an inexplicable way of making the ordinary seem extraordinary. I thought you were magnificent."
"I thought you were a bit of an ass," she muttered, and he ducked his head to muffle his laughter in the pillow, his shoulders shaking with it.
"A bit of an ass," he echoed, when he could speak once more. "I think I like that. Certainly I've been called worse."
"Well, it's true," she huffed, even as she draped her arms about his neck. "You know you were. You were so determined to let everyone think the worst of you."
"Darling, I am a pirate. Espousing kindness and generosity would hardly have done my reputation any favors," he chided. "Perhaps you've not enough experience with pirating as of yet, but let me assure you those are at the very bottom of the list of traits desirable in a pirate."
"They're desirable to me," she said. After a moment of contemplation, she added, "Trustworthiness. That's also important."
"I suppose you'll expect honesty as well," he grumbled.
"It goes hand in hand with trustworthy," she said, her lips twitching into a cheeky grin.
He gave a long-suffering sigh, as if she might as well have asked for the moon. "And are there any other requirements you'd care to share?"
She gave a sheepish shrug. "Patience?" she suggested.
He slanted her a suspicious look, and she knew he was wondering if she might've eavesdropped on his conversation with Fran. But despite his suspicions, he kept his silence on the matter. "Very well," he said. "Patience. It's not a quality with which I am overly familiar…but I suppose that even old pirates might be prevailed upon to learn new skills. Not often, mind you – but occasionally, when a situation calls for it."
A flutter of laughter escaped her, and she shifted beneath him draw her knee up, sliding her leg along his in a manner that suggested she would soon be tiring of conversation. "Does the situation call for it, then?"
"I suppose it must," he said. "I'm exhibiting patience, am I not?"
"At the moment," she said, "I think you could do with just a bit less." The silky skin of her thighs hugged his hips, and she performed an enticing wiggle, which elicited a predictable response.
His brows lifted. "Are you implying what I think you're implying?"
"I'm implying that I don't feel very much like talking right now. And, er…neither do you."
"You little witch, you provoked that –" He broke off on a groan as she tilted her hips, and her intimate flesh made brief, delicious contact with his. The exquisite friction and heat sent a tremor down his spine. "That was not fair," he managed, in a distinctly guttural tone.
She pressed her lips together against an unwise burst of laughter. Her fingernails scraped his skin, and his every nerve ending sizzled at the sensation. When she leaned up, her breasts flattened against his chest, and her sharp little teeth nipped at his lower lip. "You were saying?" she murmured.
"Blast you, I can't remember," he growled. But he was already fisting his fingers in her hair, gently tugging her head back to expose the column of her throat. That sweet and tart citrus scent assailed him, strongest where her pulse beat, making his head spin. And he was helpless but to press his lips there, worshipping the smooth satin of her skin, feeling the satisfied purr that tripped up her throat well before he heard it.
Only too recently she had been timid, shy, uncertain in matters of physical intimacy. She had been content to let him lead, following only when she was certain she wished to proceed down the path he forged ahead. Now she moved in a dance of her own invention, in the sure, perfect rhythm of confidence relearned. And he moved to her music, the notes comprised of her soft sighs, the rests of the hitches in her breathing whenever he ferreted out a particularly sensitive spot.
Her hands splayed across his back, her fingers flexing in building tension. Her breath feathered out near his ear on a plaintive sigh; she embraced him with the whole of her body, her thighs nipping tight about his hips. She murmured his name in an entreating tone, rolling her hips in blatant invitation, seeking the perfect combination of friction and pressure.
A whine of frustration built in her throat as she gradually realized that he had been intentionally thwarting her efforts. She fisted her hands in his hair, lifting his head from her breast to frown into his face.
"Do you think you might hurry up?" she asked.
He shook her hands free, smothering his laughter against the side of her throat. "Perhaps I'm not the only one who could benefit from a lesson in patience," he suggested, skating his fingertips down her stomach. He lifted his head to watch her eyes grow hazy in anticipation of his touch, her little white teeth worrying her lower lip. Denied – he let his fingers get close enough to tantalize and no further before he reversed his direction. She made an infuriated sound in the back of her throat, every muscle clenching in outraged annoyance.
He had been banking on his superior strength and weight to keep her pinned in place – he had not factored her determination into his equation. She bucked beneath him, managing to lift him the scant few inches she needed to wriggle into a better position. Her hands coasted down his back to sink her claws into his rear, lifting her hips as she yanked his, and his breath whooshed from his lungs as she conquered his cruel resistance and her silky flesh enveloped him.
Her sigh of pleasure was cut abruptly short as he slid his palm beneath her knee, pressing up to halt her relentless wriggling. Inside, she contracted upon him, struggling to keep hold, and she thumped his back with her fists, eliciting a laugh from him.
Her knee flexed in his hand. A growl escaped her tight throat, and she dropped her head back onto the pillow, pressing her hands over her eyes as her mouth screwed up into a scowl. "I was right," she muttered with sulky petulance. "You are an ass."
"Enough, you impertinent chit," he said, brushing a kiss across her forehead. He eased her knee higher, provoking a confused murmur from her. "All right?"
She nodded, her brows drawn together, needling his shoulder with her nails. At last he pressed forward, watching her face for any sign of discomfort. Her breath shuddered out, the changed angle more intense than she had been prepared for. Her free hand fisted in the pillow beside her head, her mouth opened and rounded on a gasp of surprise.
He moved in slow increments, fighting the clutch of her slick inner muscles that threatened to coerce him into spending before he was ready. And by the time he had come to rest, sweat had burnished his skin and she was panting as if she could no longer fill her lungs.
"Oh," she managed between desperate breaths, her eyes dazed, her whole body trembling with unrelieved tension. She shifted as if compelled into the motion. He had thought he could go no further, but that tiny motion proved him wrong. Her back arched, and a cry wrenched itself from her throat.
For half a moment he thought he had hurt her – until her inner flesh bore down on him, squeezing in lush, rhythmic contractions. Not agony – release. She squirmed, her hips surging to his in her abandon, her face a mask of tortured delight. Spurred into motion by the demands of her body, he drew back and lunged, her broken breaths a sweet song in his ears. Her head tossed on the pillow, her thighs tightened on him, her nails raked the sheets, scrabbling for purchase.
His control fractured, but she didn't seem to mind his relentless drive for completion. Climax struck with force of a hurricane, swift and sudden, and he could only ride it out, shuddering as he panted through the storm. He felt her hands in his hair, stroking through the sweat-dampened strands. When he could finally trouble himself to move, he eased her knee back down to settle himself against her, sliding his arms beneath her and pillowing his head on her breasts.
"You greedy girl," he chided. "You were supposed to wait for me."
Beneath his head, he felt her lungs expand as she drew in a huge breath and yawned. "Oops," she said, too tired to manage even the smallest concession towards sounding apologetic. Slowly her fingers ceased to come soothingly through his hair, and he knew she had fallen asleep at last.
He supposed he ought to be gratified somewhat that she trusted him this much, that she could sleep peacefully in his arms, that she had chosen to stay with him. Instead, he found himself mired in discontentment. He might've accused her of greed, but between the two of them, he was by far the more avaricious. He had never been content with a fraction of anything when he might simply steal the whole. He could never be content with the half-hearted love she had offered him. But his aptitude for thieving and pirating would avail him nothing; he could not steal her heart. It had to be freely given.
He eased onto his side lest he grow too heavy for her, pleased that she turned with him, sighing as she tucked her head beneath his chin and draped her leg over his, snuggling against his chest. Patience, he reminded himself. She only needed time.
Penelo made an irritable sound as Balthier extracted himself from the tangle of her limbs as he slid toward the edge of the bed. "It's too early," she muttered petulantly.
"Now who's grumpy in the morning?" He snickered, brushing her hair away from her face to drop a kiss on her cheek. "You needn't rouse yourself just yet. I'm only going into Tarram to make some inquiries regarding recent wanted posters. I shouldn't be more than an hour."
"Do it later," she mumbled. "It's barely light out." That wasn't strictly true, but she reasoned that if she didn't open her eyes, she couldn't be disproved.
A laugh rumbled in his chest. "It's gone half ten already," he said. "A respectable hour to rise even by my standards." The bed dipped as he sat at the edge of tug on his boots. "Be grateful I am kinder to you than you are to me; I could simply pester you into rising as well, as you are wont to do."
"At least I make coffee for you," she grumbled, rolling across the bed to curl herself around him. The glossy leather of his vest was cool against her skin. She locked her arms around his waist. "I don't want you to go. It's cold."
"Darling," he said, in a placating tone as he detached her arms from around him, and pushed her to her back. "You've kicked off most of the covers; that's why it's cold." Grabbing up fistfuls of the blankets, he tucked them back around her. "I won't be gone long," he reiterated. "This sort of thing is best done in the light of day, and I'd rather do it alone – lest we encounter another of your victims."
"Hmph." She rolled onto her stomach, burying her face in the pillow. "They're not my victims, they're just idiots who deserved a little retribution. It's not my fault they didn't hide their gil better."
"Somehow," he said, "I doubt any of them would see it the same way." His hands landed on either side of her as he leaned over. "A kiss for luck?" he suggested.
With a huff of irritation, she flopped onto her back. "Fine," she said. She pursed her lips, leaning up to press a swift peck to his lips, then rolled right back onto her stomach.
"That's my girl." He stroked his fingers through her hair.
The bed settled as he stood, and she heard the click of his boots across the floor. And for some reason, she still didn't want to let him leave. Not when she'd failed to manage a single uncross word to him in the short time she'd been awake.
But she didn't know what to say. It seemed there was a whole host of words crammed into her mind, any combination of which might've been acceptable enough. And the ones she really wanted to say wouldn't come. Instead she settled on, "Come back soon."
She heard his low chuckle, just as he opened the door. "Quick as I can," he said. "That's a promise." And the door closed behind him, and he was gone.