I used the name andres in this one again because i figured he'd want to be extra careful about not risking cammy remembering him from shadaloo. plus i figure if his name was originally balrog, that means his actual name has to be something different anyway...right? D:

Lita told me about Halloween so I really think this is her fault. In honor of my new flat and all I decided everyone should come to my house for movies, and in honor of Halloween, I told them to pick scary movies. I've never seen a scary movie before, so I was a bit excited. Mostly Lita and Ginzu did the picking. I asked Andres to come but he said he didn't care for those sorts of movies. And he said Halloween was just a thing that's big in the States because companies there want to make money so the more holidays they have, the more junk people will buy. He used bigger words but that's the gist of what he meant, I think.

Well it turns out that scary movies can be really, very scary. Lita picked one called the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Texas is a state in the US where pig farmers lure people to horrifying deaths, apparently, and their grandfathers look like corpses. It was terrifying to watch, quite unsettling. I didn't want to spoil the evening, so I didn't say anything, even if I was thoroughly disturbed. Ginzu picked a different movie and he said, 'it's about psychological terror, not murder!' and then made us watch something called the Exorcist. An exorcist is someone who's a priest and he gets rid of demons that make your head spin around. It's terrifying, what a demon does to you. Ginzu's girlfriend thought it was funny. Am I really just sensitive, or are they all complete nuts for finding this entertaining?

At the end everyone was leaving and it suddenly hit me that I'm going to be very alone all night. So before they could leave I managed to get a text out to Andres, asking him to come by. He seemed reluctant but when I finally admitted it was due to how afraid I was he said he'd come. I picked him because Ginzu had his girlfriend with him and I didn't want to bother them. Lita I thought might tease me about being scared. Andres might tease me too, but he'd let me live it down. Lita, probably not.

There were a few minutes of horrifying alone-ness in which every creak and crackle of my home seemed to be due to a secret killer lurking around. I turned on every light in the place but still didn't feel better. I resigned to sitting in the middle of the couch, trying to keep my eyes on everything at once. But then I remembered, that demon fellow in the Exorcist, I don't think the little girl ever saw him coming.

When the knock on my door finally came, I couldn't help but freeze up for what felt like a long time. What if it's a killer come to kidnap and murder me? What if it's a demon come to possess me? If I pretend not to be here, it'll go away, right?

"Don't tell me I walked all this long way for nothing."

Or maybe it's just that fellow I asked to come here. Obviously I knew that. I make myself take a deeper breath than normal and I get up and let him in. I expected him to look sleepy but he doesn't. I'm beginning to think he's a robot of some sort. "You said you only live a few blocks away," I say in defense of myself. "I only want to hang out a bit, it won't kill you."

"It might."

"You're an ass!" I close the door behind him a bit more loudly than I should have at this time of night.

"Did I come here for you to hurl insults at?" He's plainly not offended and I know he's joking.

"No. It's just, well, what if-" I don't know what if. What if a demon possesses me in my sleep and I spit up green stuff and my head spins around. I don't know how he's supposed to stop that from happening. But it'd be nice just to know someone else is around. "We can do something you want." I think it's fair enough, I dragged him out here at nearly one in the morning.

"You're really afraid?" He asked it more like he was making sure, not like he's making fun of me. So even though I don't want to admit it, I nod a bit slowly. It's awkward for a minute and he looks around at my place. I've never seen where he lives so I don't know how to compare them. He sits down on the couch and I want to as well but then I have this terrible idea that something's under it. It'll shoot its spindly little arms out and snag me in its claws, I just know it! He must notice me looking down towards the floor because he asks, "What?" He thinks something must be wrong with his shoes, I gather, because he starts inspecting them.

"It's-oh, don't tease me!" He holds up his hands as if to say 'of course not, never'. I sigh as I attempt to ask this in a way that won't make me look like a coward. "What if something's under there?" I whisper it like that way the monster or demon or whoever won't hear me say it.

He looks like he feels bad for me and that he's trying not to laugh at the same time. Then he does the worst thing, he bends down and pulls up the flap of cloth that hangs off the end of the couch and looks under! "Di-os mio!" he says in this slow but also somehow alarmed at the same time. I think I might throw up, my throat gets all locked up and maybe I sound pathetic when I beg, "What what?!"

But then he sits back up and in his hand there's an empty bag of candy and he looks like he's caught me red handed. "How long has that been under there?"

"I thought there was a murderer in there!" I launch myself at him and hit him twice on the shoulder for good measure because my heart is still beating a little fast from being so frightened.

"It's a slow and silent murderer, heart disease," he clarifies and I growl at him.

"This must be what life is like in a fairy tale." I regret it as soon as I say it because really, it's a bit silly. A bit dramatic. But it's so beautiful, the rolling hills peppered with wildflowers. The leaves have turned all bright and fiery and when the wind blows, it sends waves through the tall grasses and leaves whirl around through the air like something magical, like they're acting on their own to always dance just out of your reach. Even a flock of little sparrows fluttered up out of the grass when we came near, twittering in their panicked little way.

"Is that so, princess Cammy?"

I knew he'd tease me for saying that. "Yes," I say confidently, because it is like a fairy tale, whether he likes it or not. At least like the ones I know of so far. "And you are the dragon that I've got to slay." I pretend to have stabbed him but he doesn't play along. He smiles though so at least I know he isn't annoyed with me.

"Mm, the prince is meant to do that, I think."

"Sod the bloody prince. I can do it better than him anyway."

"Vale."

I look around again and almost can't believe where I am. Hyde Park is nice and all, but it pales in comparison to real, unrbidled, untamed wilderness. I didn't know what he meant when he said that at first, but now I do. It's like at the park, it's all prim and proper, kept neat just for us. But out here, it's nature's rules and you've just got to deal with it. The grass we're sat in is almost tall as us. I don't think a park would allow for that-people would lose their children in it. "I'm related to nobility, you know," he says suddenly.

I look at him like's he's talking shit. He jokes all the time so I don't know what's the truth about him and what's not. "No you aren't," I say, wanting to beat him to the punch for once.

"I truly am. Through my dad." Then he makes a face like he's heard something sort of absurd. "Not so certain it's a perk to be related to any of Spain's royalty, though."

"Why's that?"

"Atrocious amounts of inbreeding in the past."

Now I'm the one making the face. I look up as the clouds go by. It looks like a storm might come in. All his talk about old relatives has me wondering about my own. There must not be any out there, otherwise they'd be searching for me. Right? But if they're all gone, what happened to them? Or have they just not noticed yet that I've gone missing from them? "I wonder if I'm related to anyone interesting."

"It doesn't matter," he says and I get a bit bristly at that. But then he says, "You're more interesting than anyone you could be related to."

"Oh really?" I say sarcastically, tilting my head and giving him a look like he's the moron here. "I'm more interesting than Queen Elizabeth?"

"I don't like small dogs. Or any at all."

"Princess Diana?"

"Don't think she's a very good conversation partner anymore."

I don't want to laugh because it's a terribly disrespectful joke so I have to clamp a hand over my mouth to keep him from seeing me giggle. "You're terrible."

"So I've heard." He looks up at the sky now too, watching the clouds. I have to smile because he doesn't look like he belongs out here. He should be in an art gallery using words that sound made up, or taking in a complicated philosophy lecture at Oxford, or mingling with the upper crust at a proper ball or something.

So I ask him, "Do you like going out to places like this? Out in the woods and stuff?"

"Nature is certainly beautiful," he says. "But..."

"But?

"I prefer to view it from a comfortable distance." Knew it. "I brought you here because I thought you might like it."

"Well, good guess," I say. I lie back in the grass but he doesn't do the same. A ladybug crawls up my arm and I watch it. He's still looking at the clouds. "Can I meet your mum?" I ask. "You talk about her all the time, and I haven't got one that I can remember. I want to know what it's like." Maybe it's silly but I feel like I could approximate some sort of idea of how it is to be someone's kid if I see it in action. Maybe she'd even be like one of those mums you see in shows sometimes where they treat their kid's friends like their own children.

But he looks all stiff, still watching the clouds. "She's dead," he says and now I feel terrible for bringing it up. But it's not like I could just know something like that.

"I'm sorry."

He doesn't say anything else. I don't know what to say either. I let the ladybug crawl up onto my finger, and then I set it on his sleeve. It crawls off, bright red spot against the dark blue. He didn't even notice. I wonder how his mum died but I haven't got it in me to ask about it. I don't think he'd answer if I asked. I lay back down and watch as more clouds come into view. It'll rain soon. I can sort of feel it in the wind. I glance at him again and he's looking down the hill though nothing's there.

I'm a bit drowsy. Feel a little guilty because maybe I upset him. The world seems to be getting far away for a moment. Don't know how much time has passed when I feel something brush my arm. I open my eyes and he's looking at me. "It's going to rain," he says.

"Right." I sit up and stretch. He stands up and brushes off his pants. "I'm glad you told me about this place you know," I say. Maybe it'll make him feel better.

"You should see the Pyrenees," he says.

"What's that then?"

"Mountains between France and Spain. Much bigger hills." He nods out at the ones we're facing, rolling away in the distance.

"Mountains, hm?" I say. I've seen them in movies of course, but it probably would be worth it to see in person. So I nod. "Let's do that then. Sometime." I don't know when exactly because I'm still trying to save up and he's probably got a lot of school work to do. My thoughts are interrupted when I feel a raindrop on my head and I flinch. "Oh, here it comes!" I cry and I tear off through the woods. He's behind me and it's actually pretty impressive that he can keep up with me. No one at Delta Red can.

He makes an annoyed sound when the rain comes down in full. We're both lost causes by the time we get back to the car.

This is pretty intimidating to me because I've never been somewhere so nice before. Everyone's dressed pretty well, not like too fancy, but certainly fancier than any way I've ever dressed. That much is evident because all of these women are wearing nice pretty shoes and I forgot about that part and just wore my regular boots and people keep looking at me funny. I got a dress from Primark, it was seventeen pounds and I thought that was sort of pricey, so I don't want to think about how much these women's dresses cost them.

But he doesn't say anything about what I'm wearing or that it's not fancy enough. He's dressed a bit nicer than normal but well he's always dressed nicely, like he just walked out of a magazine. I start to tell him I'm sorry I didn't quite grasp how I was meant to be dressed and he says don't be sorry to anyone ever. "Now you're unique." That makes me feel a bit better, to think of myself as a rarity but when I think more about it, I'm back to feeling silly. Yes, the lone, scrappy rag doll among a sea of porcelain dolls still in their boxes, what a lovely exception that is.

It's made worse by the fact that we're sat at a table with other people I don't know and he doesn't know. Normally I'd be okay just talking to anyone, but these people intimidate me for some reason. I don't feel like I could sit one down and talk about cats or video games or movies with them like my friends at work. There's an older couple where the woman says 'charmed' when we exchange introductions but then she says "Oh, my dear little maid has that same dress, I think," and maybe she meant it nicely but it makes me even more self-conscious. Andres just says, "Well, she has obviously good taste." and it makes me feel a little less embarrassed. There's a younger lady which made me feel better at first, maybe we'd have more in common. But she introduces herself to us and says pleased to meet you but she's looking at my shoes when she does it and not in a really nice way. I feel like this might not be a smooth evening for me.

Andres is terribly smart. I knew he was smarter than me but just about everyone is so that's not saying much. But he talks to them and uses these words I suspected were made up at first but then the others at the table use them back without missing a beat. The old man kept asking him about Franco and I don't know who that is but everybody else seems to. They talk about fastism and then not-sees, whatever any of that is. The younger lady talks to him about art, which makes sense because this is a party-though it doesn't feel like one, really-at an art museum. All these names are thrown around. Picasso and Pissaro, Magritte and Matisse. Impressionist, post-impressionist, surrealist, God, how can I even begin to delve into this conversation? 'Well it's nice about your abstract postmodern neoclassical romantics and all, but did you know that the clouds in Super Mario are the same shape as the bushes?' Yes, they'll love me, this lot.

I get quite bored once I realise I'm not going to make a dent in any of these conversations. I tap my fingers on the table, like he does when he's thinking and now I'm wondering whether or not these little tics and movements we make are, in a way, contagious in a subconscious way, learned, or just coincidences. But I think the tapping only caught people's attention. No good. The younger lady who's done nothing but chat him up all night looks over at me and says, "You're certainly a quiet one."

What do I say? Should I try to fake my way into their conversation? Oh wouldn't that be such a disaster. "Haven't got a lot to say I suppose." Best be honest. At least I can have that.

"Well everyone has something to say," she says. "What are you studying?"

"Oh, I'm not in school right now."

She raises an eyebrow in this skeptical sort of way. "You can't be much older than sixteen."

"I'm nineteen." I don't like being mistaken for being so young. People say oh you'll like it later, well that's fine. Later you can say I look young, but not right now. "I work with MI6."

That gets her eyebrows up but now this time in this condescending manner. "What an imagination you have."

Oh I'll show her some imagination! I'm ready to tear her a new one with what I have to say, but Andres beats me to it. "She's their most skilled operative." Well now I don't know if that's true but I can't refuse the help in this conversation.

"You're joking."

"Not at all," he says. Then he gets a bit silly with it and tells her about all my amazing feats I've never performed. Foiled assassination attempts. Ending the careers of drug lords. Hunting down terrorists and dragging them to prison with my own two hands. So far I haven't done much more than learn about code breaking and encryption, but he makes me sound like an action hero, in a subtly believable way. I don't know why but it makes me feel a bit better, even if it's all lies. I picture us like we're stranded in the middle of the ocean and these people are hungry sharks circling us and just when I thought they'd eat us all up he starts throwing food to them and has them doing circus tricks in no time.

So I play along, a bit emboldened now by his support. "Oh, stop. No one wants to hear about my droll, boring work..."

But she agrees apparently and asks him, "Well, what do you do with your time then?"

"As I said, I'm just a student. Quite inconsequential, following the details of someone so illustrious, really." He nods to me and I try not to laugh at loud. Might spoil his whole joke. I shrug it off, as if it's nothing to me, the heroic government agent.

I make it through the evening thanks to his help. The lady was quite bold and gave him her number at the end of the night. But as we were walking out of the place, he threw it in a waste bin. "Why'd you do that?" I ask.

He shrugs. "Not interested."

"She was so pretty and smart though!" I say because, really, she was. Even if I wasn't fond of being there, I have to admit that. I don't want to be thought of as stupid, or childish, or even a basket case, but in comparison to people like that, well, what else is someone bound to think of me?

"She was," he agrees.

"It seems like you two would get on well."

"There are very few people with whom I 'get on well'," he says, mimicking my accent a bit at the end. He's pretty good at it but I don't want to get distracted.

"Bollocks," I say. "You know how to talk to everybody." Not like me. I get annoyed quick because everyone gets hung up on my past or lack of one, rather. Or I'll stop to ask them what they mean by something that must be obvious to everybody but me because then they tease me about it.

He smiles, he's better at taking compliments than I am, that's for sure, but I bet he's a lot more used to hearing them, too. He probably gets so many and I picture him suddenly with an umbrella walking through the rain only its nice words falling down instead of water and he barely seems to notice. "Let me tell you a secret," he says. I perk up. He never tells me secrets. "I'm a great actor."

I'm confused for a moment and try to think it over myself. "So you just pretend like you're getting on with people?"

He nods.

"Why?"

"It's what people like. Agreeable people."

I press my lips together, again trying to work it out. "You pretend to like people you don't like so that they'll like you?" I ask, my face beginning to scrunch in on itself as it does when I'm presented with information as confusing as that.

He seems to think it over for a moment. "I suppose that's it, yes."

"I don't get it," I admit finally.

"Don't you want people to like you?" he asks.

"Well...sure," I say. "But if they don't, it's not major. Not everyone's going to like you. Just how it is, I figured." I shrug. Maybe I'm wrong though. I mean I must be, because he's so much smarter than I am. So if he thinks that's the way you should go about it, he's probably right, but I just can't work out how. "It'd drive me mad, pretending I liked people who annoyed me." I shake my head, because really the more I think about it the harder it is to imagine. I'd fly off the handle. "No, I just couldn't do it. I'd rather people liked and disliked me for who I am than for who I'm not."

"It's easy for you to say," he says. "Who you are is rather lovely."

He's probably teasing me again so I shake my head and roll my eyes at him. "Oh, ha ha. At any rate, aren't you always saying I should never apologize and things like that?"

"What about it?"

"Well, you pretending who you are to be better liked is just the same as apologizing. It's like you're saying sorry for who you are, so you act different to make up for it," I explain although I don't know if it's really logical or not. "So why should I never apologize but you always should?"

He looks like he's considering it but I can't tell if it's in a way where I've genuinely puzzled him, or if I've just made so little sense that he's struggling to work out what I mean. But then he says, "It's just different, Cammy, that's all."