Chapter 6

It was well past dark before he saw Rapunzel again. He didn't hear much from her either, save for a few demure, muffled responses to her mother's constant insinuations.

When she appeared at last after her mother had gone to bed, she took all the jabs about her laziness to heart and sat at her work bench without even glancing in Flynn's direction. There she sketched and sketched and sketched and sketched, her shoulders sinking lower, her eyes growing heavier. When she finally paused to yawn and stretch, instead of stopping, she pulled several sheets of thick construction paper from beneath a pile of screws and started forming painstakingly precise stencils with a pen knife.

Her tongue barely peeked from between her lips while she worked. Her face took on a look of complete focus, enveloped in a world of her own devising, of ideas and form and invention that could carry her away.

Although he had no idea why, it was fascinating to watch. There was something calming and hypnotic in her movements despite her fatigue. He realized he'd been staring at her through the thin slit below the drapes, without knowing how long he'd done so, and there was something scary and pathetic in that.

Moving silently, he took a sheet of paper from the pile of discarded tic-tac-toe boards and wrote a quick note.

-Do you sleep?-

It sounded a bit like a cheesy pick up line and he considered it a moment before deciding that he didn't care. He gestured at the chameleon, pointing at the note, then at Rapunzel.

The chameleon gave him a blank stare.

He rolled up the note and pushed it at the chameleon, only to have it spaz about a bit. It took a step back trying to duck away, its head looping in a circle as if pushed by the note, the lenses in its eyes shifting rapidly.

He gave its side - where he'd seen the storage compartment it had for just such occasions - a hard, frustrated poke. Finally, it got the picture, moving its tail excitedly and extending out the message tube with a gentle creak and a soft pop.

Stupid thing.

He shoved the note inside and nudged it on its way.

He watched through the slit again as it moseyed down to the floor, then across to the table, then up one of the legs, where it seemed to forget what it was doing and looked around at the ceiling with its mouth hanging open.

Flynn slapped himself on the forehead.

Eventually the chameleon came back to its senses and wandered up to nudge at Rapunzel, startling her so much she nearly cut herself. She looked down at it with a smile she didn't feel and lifted her goggles up onto her forehead.

"What?" she whispered.

Pascal took on a posture of someone far more important than he actually was and presented her with Flynn's note as if it was the most valuable object in existence.

She looked confused, as if she had never gotten a note before. She probably hadn't. Unless she sent them to herself. Or if they were to-do lists from her mother.

Unrolling it carefully, touching it only at the edges, she read it through at least three times before sneaking a look in his direction and scribbling out a response.

With a new set of whispered directions, Pascal made the journey back towards the bed, although this time he moved with much more speed and determination.

Rapunzel tidied up her space as much as she ever did. As always, she seemed to get distracted or give up or decide it was good enough half way through.

She pushed herself the her feet and left the room just as Pascal made his reappearance, presenting Flynn with his cargo, and looking very pleased with itself.

-No.-

Figures.

It took a while for Rapunzel to return – time he used to gather up everything he and Pascal had strewn across the bed over the course of the evening, shove it back in the basket, and shove the basket onto the little shelf set in the ceiling over the bed. It was clean by the time she slipped back into the room, face freshly washed, teeth freshly brushed, clad in her nightgown and goggles.

It was his intention to be spread out, looking delicious when she arrived, but as she tried to clamber up into the bed while holding an oil lamp, he had to scramble to take it from her before something disastrous happened. He gave her a hand up, which pulled at his side in a really uncomfortable way, making him cringe and look generally unattractive.

He smiled at her, but instead of giggling and picking up where they left off, she bit her lip and avoided his eyes, busying herself by turning off the lamp and plunging them into darkness. With her back firmly facing him, she slipped under the blankets and snuggled up in a little ball.

Okay. So he was moving too fast and getting her into trouble and pushing his welcome and all that. He got it. Feeling up a super sheltered girl while he was still severely injured was probably not the best plan.

He sighed, settling his head on their shared pillow, and after a moment of terse silence, dared to whisper, "Sorry."

He figured she'd shush him, or the chameleon would drug him again to keep him quiet. Instead she rolled over to face him, her hand slowly extending to find his chest in the dark. The tips of her fingers trailed up to his shoulder, his neck, the side of his face, mapping out his form even though she couldn't see him. Her fingers spread to cup his cheek, pressing her palm against his skin, as he found her hip with a hand and guided her closer.

"You were right," she murmured. It was the kind of sound that did not carry, as if the blackness around them stifled everything but her sadness.

"Right?"

"The way she treats me. It's…"

She shifted, holding out just a moment before scooting forward to wrap her arms around his shoulders and bury her face against his neck.

He stiffened. Crying girls were even less his thing than crazy girls. What was he supposed to do?

His arms dragged around her form, offering the comfort she needed, even as his mind faltered.

She had comforted him the night before, so this was just pay back. That's all it was. He owed her so much, and he didn't like being indebted to people. Any small way he could pay it off, any small way he wouldn't owe her later, he would take it.

That's what he told himself as he stroked her hair and held her close. It wasn't anything deeper than that. It wasn't that she seemed to fit in his arms or that he liked the way her fingers brushed the back of his neck.

Or actually, lust was something he could deal with. Lust could be a part of it. Lust, but not anything more emotional. Not anything that eased into his chest with each of her deep breaths.

Pity he could understand too. He pitied lots of people for not being as awesome as he was, for having to stay tied down to one place and a handful of people, for not being free and careless. He felt sorry for her, so he hugged her. Simple as that. Except that didn't make sense either. Pity was his thing, sympathy was not.

"I wish you'd never come here," she murmured. "Then I wouldn't know. Now it's all I can think about."

With a deep breath, he pressed his cheek to the top of her head. "That makes two of us."

She pulled back to look into his face - or where his face would be. And after a moment's hesitation and a moment's groping to map his face again, to find the corner of his mouth with her thumb, she lightly pressed her lips to his.

It was soft and gentle still, and such a small gesture that it was amazing he could fall into it so completely. Every fiber of his being attended to the smallest pucker of her lips, the lightest press of her mouth, the-

With a gasp, she jerked away to leave him jilted and confused, but before he could choke out anything worth saying, she was back in his arms again, kissing him with slightly more enthusiasm.

She sucked him right back in, her head slanted to the side, her hands splayed against his chest, soaking up his heartbeat, consuming him until her abruptness didn't really matter anymore. His fingers trailed up her face, skating over smooth skin, to tilt her chin and cup her face and catch on her goggles.

… That was weird.

He broke the kiss, eliciting the softest of needy mews from her, one he simultaneously wanted to hear over and over, and one that made him want to keep kissing her so she'd never make it again.

He fought the urges away, beating them off with a stick because he just couldn't let this issue go unanswered for very long at all.

"Blondie, why are you wearing those?"

She couldn't possibly see anything. Unless they let her see in the dark. But then why was she staring at him in the first place?

"Mother said that if I kept doing… what I was doing… I'd go blind. I figured that these would help. For protection. You know?"

He blinked at her, then squeezed his eyes shut and groaned.

"You're not going to go blind."

He could practically see her skeptical face, he'd seen it enough. "How do you know?"

"Because I do. That doesn't actually happen."

"Promise?"

"Yes."

She thought on it a moment.

"Would you rather sleep with them on?"

"No," she admitted.

Shaking his head, he reached up and eased the goggles off her face, careful of her hair and all the delicate little lenses. Reaching over his head, he set them next to Pascal, who scooted over to make room with a series of soft ticks.

"Why would she lie about that?" she asked, snuggling back into his chest, pressing her forehead against him as if trying to replicate the comforting squeeze of her headgear. "It's such a weird thing to say if it's not true."

"She's trying to scare you into not having any fun."

"Why would she do that?" It was a question that expanded as she asked it, applying itself to every aspect of her life, settling over them like a thick fog.

It was a question he'd been trying to figure out for a while. Why did she want Rapunzel to stay scared and ignorant? Why did she lie and why did she not want Rapunzel to leave?

There had to be something he was missing, some glaringly obvious, huge piece of the puzzle that would fall into place and shift everything he knew about the girl in his arms.

People weren't this evil without reason.

"I don't know," he whispered. "I don't know."