Chapter Fifteen

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"X-way machine?" Anya repeated the mysterious sounds that played in her head. She didn't know where they had come from. The doctor's lips hadn't moved, but she heard them like an apparition that had suddenly appeared in her mind.

"What did just you say?" Doctor Fairaway's pen halted on her clipboard, breathless and starry eyed. They had transfixed on Anya like she was some ancient artifact lost long ago.

"Did she just—" Anya's father, Kai, who was often present during these earlier tests, started, and raised an excited, aimless hand at the doctor he wasn't even looking at.

Doctor Fairaway's clipboard lowered and a smile lilted on her lips, a huff of amazed laughter forced from her throat. ". . .yes. . ." She breathed, astounded with excitement, and Kai's parted mouth slid up into a speechless half-smile.

"HA!" His hands slapped once in jubilant victory, startling both the doctor and Anya. "Hahaha! Well done, Doctor Fairaway! And Anya!" Kai roared riotously and Anya flinched back at the sudden grab for her head. "Anya, you did it, I'm so proud of you! Well done, my girl!" He planted a firm kiss on the top of her head. "Do you know what this means?!" He said loudly, unable to contain his elation, and the wild spark behind his eyes scared Anya.

Anya shook her head, nervously. All her life had been an experiment, but she had never known what they were for. It was hard for a two year old to understand all the words the doctors used.

But she knew she didn't want it. She didn't want anything that was a result of all those needles and knives. If they were bad, surely whatever they were happy about was worse.

"You're an esper." He said and laughed like he was surprised by the words coming out of his own mouth. Hah!" He said louder. "You're an esper! The experiments worked! You can read minds! You're one of the most special people in the world!" He gave her head a light shake and let go to congratulate the doctor on the back.

"I can. . .wead minds?" Anya repeated quietly.

Kai took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair, but his excitement still showed clear by the wide grin on his face. "Yes, Anya. You can read minds."

". . .What does that mean?"

"It means you can hear people's thoughts in your own head."

"Why?"

He chuckled at her young ignorance. "So you can save the country." He explained. "That's why."

"What?" Anya said.

The director came and leaned on the arms of her medical chair. "Someday." He started. "You're going to go out in the world to do great things, Anya. You have a special gift and you're going to do things no one else can do. Our country is broken and you're my secret weapon that's going to help fix it."

"Sequet weapon?"

"Yes." He chuckled again. "Secret. You can't tell anyone outside the lab."

"Why?"

The director sighed through his nose with a patronizing smile. "Because it's secret is like a bomb. It's safe in your hands, but once you give it to someone else, the fuse is lit, and they and everyone around them is put at risk. You're put at risk. And if you're put at risk, the country is put at risk. Entrusting your secret to anyone is implicitly wrong. It is not for other people to know. It has to be guarded at all costs. Do you understand?"

Anya nodded her head, though she was a little confused.

But it didn't matter.

Her told her again.

And again.

And again.

And had her repeat it back to him, ingraining it into the very structure of her brain.

People could hate and fear her if they found out she was different, but the bigger problem was the bomb they would carry. Dangerous and scary.

Damian was dangerous and scary.

Or at least he was supposed to be. He was still. . .Damian. Anya knew she could trust him, the bomb wouldn't explode in his hands, but deep inside, she couldn't forget her father's words.

Anya had tried to avoid Damian. Tried to shut him out. She had tried to pretend that her avoiding him wasn't bothering him and then he had to go and talk.

Anya hadn't wanted to tell him anything. She'd wanted him to leave her alone, but he was hurting. He was hurting more than she thought and she couldn't not tell him. He'd basically confessed that he missed her and she could feel his heart aching and the abandonment following it.

It ripped into her conscious and bled her heart. She had caused this and all Damian wanted was for them to be friends.

If she was going to avoid him, he should know why. Having him think she didn't trust him just seemed an unnecessary cruelty. So she told him.

She didn't think it would lead to this.

Anya walked behind him, constantly wondering if she should run through the empty halls back to the gym. Where the loud noises crowded her brain, but at least she wouldn't be alone with him.

The difference in the way they saw their experience at the lab was massive.

Anya hadseen Damian as a puzzle piece in the wrong box. A foreign contaminate that would be destroyed unless he found a way out.

Damian had seen Anya as a boat on a wild storm. He had hung on for dear life, not quite able to board, but it had kept him alive. She was a companion during the scariest and darkest time of his life, and he didn't want to lose her.

And now she was realizing just how much he had needed her. And still did apparently.

But she had been too ensconced in her own fears to notice.

Damian suddenly stopped and Anya jerked back before she rammed into him. He turned to her and she avoided meeting his eyes.

"Do you really believe what he said?" He asked quietly.

Anya looked down at her hands fidgeting with her hem and peeked side to side, very much feeling like running. She should. She should run and run and never look back. Why did she follow him? This was a terrible idea. She felt like she owed him and she couldn't shove it down. Stupid heart. Stupid morals.

"Are you seriously thinking of running right now?" Damian asked as if he had expected it and Anya jolted. "Can't we just talk." Damian said. "For once? You've been avoiding me forever and I'm sick of it!"

Anya inhaled shakily and her foot bounced on the floor.

Damian sighed and dragged his hands over his face. "I just want to talk." He complained. "You owe me that much!"

Anya flinched. His words were eerily similar to her thoughts. She bit her lip and nodded.

Damian inhaled deeply, clearly surprised that that had worked.

"You—you said you were scared." He mumbled at the floor he scuffed a shoe at.

Okay, Anya thought. She guessed they were doing this here.

She hugged her arms to her body.

"Because of what the director said." Damian continued and hearing him reiterate the words made her very jumpy for some reason.

"Are you going to let it stay that way forever?" Damian said softly, edged with apprehension.

Anya's eyes snapped to him then, his words like a hammer on the bell she was scared to touch.

Her father's lessons were strewn throughout her life like the roots of a tree. Some very deep and some that barely breached the surface. And all of them, like a shadow that followed at her heels.

Kai was the trunk, pushing the roots into the soil and draining the ground of it's nutrients.

Anya wanted to cut it down. She was trying. She had tried to participate in gym, to be a kid, she had tried to move past it, But the trunk was thick and heavy. It wouldn't budge and she was already exhausted.

She didn't want to consider that it might never fall.

"Wh—h-hey!" Damian's hands snapped out, hovering between them as tears slid down her face and she lowered her head. "Uh—uh—wh-why are you crying now?! D-did I say something wrong?!"

Anya dropped to crouch on the ground, hiccupping.

Damian went with her. "H-hey—um—"

"I—d-don't k-know." Anya cried and Damian stilled. "H-he w-won't go a-away!" Anya's hands formed into claws and clutched at her scalp.

"Uh—" Damian said, his hands slipping back. "Oh. . ." He responded insightfully.

The bones in Anya's chest rattled and her wet sobs clung in her throat. She gasped involuntarily and it made her shudder. She was so tired. Her body strained like her father was holding her back by a rope around her waist and she wasn't strong enough to cut the ties. She wasn't strong enough to step outside. She was stuck in that stupid cabin and even her best efforts to think like Demetrius, her desire to believe he was right, wasn't enough. Even if she managed to step out the door, her father would still be connected to her and hindering her way. He was the author of her life, scratching out the words she wrote and changing it to what it should be. He was the compass that directed her feet and told her which way to go. Her conscious reminding her what was right from wrong, reminding her of what could happen if she stepped out of line.

She collected herself to the point she had stopped hiccupping and shaking, and sniffled, lowering her hands to wrap around her stomach.

She was stuck. Wanting for the world Demetrius had offered, and trapped in the one her father had laid out for her.

Damian entertained the silence for another moment as Anya gathered herself, but he was compelled to cut it short. ". . .then. . .what do we do. . .?"

Anya placed her hands on her knees and plopped her forehead on them.

"C-can-can I do anything?" He mumbled.

She automatically shook her head no.

Damian seemed to take this as a personal insult on his capabilities and clicked his tongue. "I bet you, I could!"

"How?" She muttered tiredly, lacking any confidence he could follow through.

It did give him pause and he had to think for a moment. "Um. . I-I can be here." Said Damian in a soft mumble.

He was here, Anya thought as a pit weighed in her stomach. He had always been trying to be present for her and she had very purposefully ignored it. She couldn't afford to take it. She couldn't afford to let herself come to rely on him when she had to stay away from him. But it had already happened. He had calmed her panic attack. He had been a comfort and she already wanted it again.

She shook her head. She couldn't do it, she couldn't do it.

There were too many big reasons it was a bad idea and though he had somehow developed into someone who was suddenly reliable and familiar, he knew. She couldn't take that away and every look at him was a reminder. Every sound of his voice was an alarm for her to flee.

"Why not?" Damian demanded. "What's really going on? You've been avoiding me way before I found out!"

She shook her head.

"You gotta say something! How is anything ever going to be resolved?!"

She tensed.

Resolved.

Anya repeated in her head. As if she wasn't feeling the things she was supposed to feel. Acting the way she was supposed to act. She lived in a world full of outsiders and her behaviour would seem weird to them.

Resolved.

As if she could get rid of this weight in her soul and pressure on her shoulders. The nightmares that plagued her daily life and held her on a strict line. Her past that was crushing her with her memories and expectations that she still heard her father weaving throughout her mind.

"Uh—ugh. . ." Damian buried his face in his hands. "Please, just stop crying. . ." He implored wearily.

Resolved.

Anya shook.

As if it could all go away.

Why was the word so painful? So out of reach? Like a forbidden fruit she wasn't allowed to have? She shouldn't say anything. She should keep it to herself like she always did. Damian already knew too much, she wasn't. Supposed. To be getting attached to him.

But she was breaking. Her mind was dying. Her soul was cracking and ripping apart with too much to carry. She would drown with it in a sea of overwhelming depression and heartache because she couldn't handle it. The door was closing. The light was disappearing. She couldn't cut ties with her father and it would lock in her in that cabin forever until she died.

She physically couldn't do this anymore.

So she desperately clung to the doorframe.

"He said—" She hiccupped and Damian was instantly alert and attentive. "He said—" Anya couldn't get it out. The words were hampered by the saliva catching in her throat and the tremble in her shoulders.

Anya fell from her crouch to sit on the floor and hugged her shins. Damian didn't prod for more as she took deep breaths and focused on her knees. When her lungs were less clogged and she felt she could make coherent syllables, she crossed her legs and sniffled, wiping at her nose. She brushed the tears from her cheek with her palm, and swiped at the other with the back of her hand.

Now that she had a semblance of composure, she didn't know what to say. How much did she tell him? This was a bad idea. She continued anyway.

"A-at the lab—" She inhaled with a shudder and her voice shook. Damian was all ears and she fidgeted with her fingers in her lap. "I-it's—" she breathed involuntarily deep and hiccupped as a tremor rolled over her body like an avalanche. Why was this so hard? "I-it's different there."

Damian was quiet, focused on her words.

"T-the director—" Anya glanced worriedly through the hall, wondering how long they had until classes ended. "He—um. . ." She exhaled shakily. "E-e-espers—" She whispered.

Never mind. She wasn't being very coherent at all.

Damian waited patiently.

She took another deep breath. "We-we're supposed to follow the rules."

Damian stretched his words out apprehensively. "What rules?" He said quietly.

"We-we're not supposed to live l-like other people b-because we're d-different."

"What?"

"A-and if we d-do—" Anya inhaled unsteadily and held it before letting it go. "People g-get hurt. T-they can't d-deal with us." Anya fought to slow her heart and force her chest to stop heaving. She hiccupped. "I-I'm not—I'm not supposed to be friends with y-you." She cried and wiped at her face again. "O-or any—" She hiccupped and she couldn't help the drum of emotions pounding on her chest and throat. "Or anyone not from the l-lab. I d-don't belong h-here." She hiccuped and dissolved into gasping sobs once more as she futilely tried to dry her face. She struggled to compose herself, wiping at her cheeks that overflowed with tears and ran down her chin, mostly failing to prevent the hiccups that wracked her chest, and tried not to dwell on the mortifying fact that she had just spilled that to Damian. It was out there and she immediately wanted to snatch it back from the air before it could reach his ears.

"Forger. . ." Damian said. His brows had furrowed, mouth parting in concerned horror as if she'd told him something disturbing. "Is—is that what you've been thinking this whole time?!" He said quietly and she may have been hallucinating the waver in his voice.

Anya clutched at her shirt where her chest wouldn't stop shuddering and flooding her with emotions without her permission, and continued to wipe at her tear soaked face. She hiccupped uncontrollably and through the blurry kaleidoscope of colours that was her vision, Damian was suddenly pulling her into a hug, his stricken face the last thing she saw before she was buried in his shoulder.

"You—you do belong here. . ." Damian whispered roughly and she thought he might start crying too. "Why. . ." His voice grew crumbly like his words could fall apart any second and she felt his heartbeat pick up, his breath a little less steady. "Why would you think we'd get hurt?" He asked.

"It a-already h-happened." She shuddered, though she already felt herself relaxing when Damian had hugged her. She didn't know why or understand it. He was the embodiment of her worst fears come true, an outsider who knew too much, the very thing her father had warned her against, and while they were ever present in her mind, she had never felt more close with him.

He had been at the lab. He had been there for her. She couldn't deny that they had survived something terrifying together, linking them, and she wasn't fully aware of the feeling until he was here. Hugging her. He knew her secret and he was going to keep it. He knew her secret and he held her in the same perspective as always.

No matter what he knew, when he held her, there was something intoxicatingly comforting about it. There was a familiarity there, a solace that only came from a shared understanding, a shared, haunting experience, and she was scared of how much she wanted to stay there and let him make her feel better.

She wasn't supposed to grow attached to him. She wasn't supposed to let him in. She couldn't dwell on his continued, steadfast, maddening efforts to be there for her.

Once she latched on, she wouldn't want to let go.

And she had to let go.

But he was so warm. And he held her so tight like he could squeeze her fears and anxieties out of her. And while disclosing this information between her and her father felt so, so unnatural, she hadn't felt so unburdened since the lab. She had hidden it deep inside, like a poison rotting her away and slowly killing her, and she had finally expelled it.

The damage was done. She hurt inside and it felt like it would never go away, but it was a relief to have it out.

There was broken murmuring and Anya realized Damian had said something, though she hadn't been paying attention. She wanted to block everything out and just sit there. Let Damian hold her until she she could breathe again. Until all of the ache in her chest had dissipated and all her fears were chased away, and she knew it would never happen.

She settled for the ease in her lungs and for her eyes to stop leaking. As her high emotions drained away, her energy went with it and her bare arms jittered with cold after-nerves. She hiccupped once and rather than feeling in control of herself, she had slipped into an exhaustion that slowed her from excessive expression.

"Wh—what. . . " Damian rasped, trying to ask his question again and he couldn't seem to get it out. Anya was calming down and he didn't want to upset her.

And apparently, she had something in her left as she inhaled and exhaled shakily on his shoulder. "You did." Her whispered voice cracked at the reference. "You got hurt." She continued, barely able to lift her volume to something audible. "Anya's parents g—" She huffed a breath in and out. "They got hurt. And B-Becky. Bad things happen to people a-around me." She answered his unspoken question and he abruptly pushed them apart, holding the sides of Anya's shoulders at arm's length.

"That wasn't your fault!" Damian cried indignantly, glossing over his confusion of why her parents and Becky were included in that list, deciding now wasn't the time to ask. "They were the ones who kidnapped me, not you!"

Anya flinched at his sudden declaration and her arms tensed at his firm grip. He startled, realizing himself, and let his hands fall.

In a strange way, Anya wished they hadn't.

She cast her eyes down, fidgeting with her fingers, and inhaled shakily for the bazillionth time. "You don't get it." She mumbled, though she wasn't sure if she did either anymore. Her conversation with Demetrius had been a shock to her system and yet, she couldn't latch onto it. She couldn't forsake what she'd been taught and everything was confusing.

Damian was quiet for a long moment. "No, maybe not." He mumbled back and his shoulders drooped. "But, Forger—" He huffed with a heave of his shoulders. "He's—" Damian floundered helplessly. "He was the bad guy." He stressed, imploring her to listen to him.

Anya lifted her gaze to him and he took it as a signal to continue.

"Forger. . ." Damian said. "He was—" Another look around the hall. "He was experimenting on kids." He leaned towards her and spoke softly. "Why are you listening to what he said?! He's—" Damian searched for the words, but ended up repeating his previous statement. "He was the bad guy!" Damian's volume didn't raise, but his words were hard with conviction.

Immediately, he straightened away from her when her eyes sheened wet and she bit her lip to keep it from trembling. She studied her hands in her lap.

The bad guy.

At some level, Anya had known he was the bad guy, but hearing it out loud. . .hearing it at all. . . .

Her hands began to shake again and she clenched them together.

How many times had she thought that herself? When he had her do things she didn't want to do, or when he watched on as the doctors studied her brain, or whenever she couldn't sleep at night because of the wails haunting the corridors?

She had thought he was the bad guy, too. Until that night when he made her see things differently.

"F-Forger?" Damian's voice shook, worried if he had said something wrong.

Anya couldn't stop the tremor in her voice as her face shone wet once more with tears. "I-is-is he?" Anya stammered, broken letters slipping from her tongue and stilling Damian. She dropped to a hoarse whisper, as if she could take back her words if she was wrong, before the sliver of hope was taken away to crush her completely. "H-how do y-you know?" Anya asked, focusing on her hands

"Forger—!" Damian exclaimed, shocked. "Of course he is! It-it-it's common sense!" He spluttered, raising agitated hands as he rose up on his knees, and Anya knew she couldn't trust it.

That was right. He was an outsider. He didn't know how things worked at the lab. Things were different there. How many times had her father told her that outsiders didn't understand the same things they did?

But—

Anya hiccupped.

She wanted to believe Damian was right. More than anything.

She didn't know how.

"Forger?!" Damian dropped back down when she didn't respond. "Hey! You're listening right?! Everyone would say he's the bad guy! He—he's—" Damian tried, his aggressive energy needing an outlet. "He's—the villain! Like in Spy Wars!"

Anya hid her face behind her hands. "It's not that simple!" She cried.

"Yes, it is!" Damian insisted fiercely and pulled her hands away from her face to see the burning intensity in his eyes. "He is the bad guy!"

"What if he's right, anyway!?" Anya sobbed.

"He's not!"

"How do you know?!"

"Because I wouldn't want to live in a world that he could be!" He yelled, the words bursting angrily from his mouth, though not directed at Anya. Damian was just angry. Anya flinched back, but he still held her wrists. "I don't care if you're supposed to do what he says, no matter what, it's still messed up! Even if breaking these rules meant the sky would fall, then let it fall! I don't care! You think someone'll get hurt?! I was kidnapped, Forger, and I'm fine! There was a gun to my head, and I'm fine! Everybody is fine, and even if they weren't, it's not you're fault! It's the people who hurt them! You're not responsible for other people's actions! And what do mean we can't deal with you?!" Damian said, somehow even more upset. "We get along fine, don't we?! You belong here as much as the rest of us!"

"B-but—" Anya interrupted weakly, eyeing him like he was a dangerous, wild animal on the loose.

"What?!" Damian exclaimed incredulously. "Is there something else I'm missing?!"

"Who's skipping classes and yelling in the halls?!"

"Oh, #%&^!" Damian swore under his breath, whipping his head behind him where the heart-stopping sound of an adult's feet sped up down another corridor.

Anya hardly noticed. She was motionless. Stunned breathless in the wake of Damian's words and uncomprehending of the tremble in her chin and shivery ache in her chest. She couldn't take her eyes of him, slightly agape, unable to pull herself together. But it didn't matter.

Damian was up in an instant, not even looking at her, and Anya was pulled to her feet through no action of her own. Damian raced in the opposite direction from the incoming faculty member.

"This way!" He hissed urgently and dragged her around a corner.

Very few times had Anya ran unimpeded down a hall with no one in sight, no one to lessen the sound of the pounding of her heart, or distract her from the adrenaline setting her nerves ablaze, sizzling like bacon in a pan. Damian's rant still fresh in her mind, her stunned thoughts clung to the present feeling of air rushing past her ears and his hand firmly gripping her's. They went as quietly as they could, though their steps still echoed like little scuffs bouncing on the walls.

Not her fault.

Unbidden, Anya gasped a shaky sob as if it had been abruptly and forcefully squeezed out of her chest.

Damian snapped worried glances at her as he slowed and peeked cautiously around the next corner. "Wh-what is it now?!" He whispered anxiously before continuing, but his nervous attention for the teacher nearing the end of the hall they had just left, had him pulling her along again.

She belonged here.

Damian kept shooting glances back her way, confused and panicked at her continued tears. Had what he said upset her?! Why?! Why did everything he do make her cry?!

As they turned down yet another hall, Damian searched for the supply closet he knew was here somewhere. He found it and was pleased to find it unlocked. He swung it open and he and Anya sat on the floor.

"U-umm, Forger?" Damian whispered uneasily into the dark.

She knew. They had to be quiet and she couldn't stop crying. She stifled it as best she could, but it just wasn't working.

Not her fault.

The words were pain. They were hope and grief and relief and something beautiful, but searing hot. She was afraid to touch it, and it filled her with a want so strongly, it ached.

It was so different from what Demetrius had told her. He believed everything he had been taught by the lab growing up, but thought they should get to live how they wanted, anyway.

And Damian. . .

Damian had outright said Kai was wrong. With no hesitation. With little insight to what the director had said or what was expected of an esper or why. He so easily claimed them invalid and Anya had never heard anything so exquisite in her life. So beautiful it made her sob, almost unbelievable that it could exist. That it might exist.

But still.

He was and outsider. What could he know?

And yet. It was everything she wanted.

"Then let it fall." He had said. As if no consequence was worth the bad things that could happen. He had been so insistent on it. So sure.

He had challenged her father's word so completely and utterly and she had to wonder if he could be right.

Anya inhaled unsteadily. Deeply. She fought the way her chest seemed to break into a million pieces, the wet sobs that crawled up her throat, and exhaled, hiccupping instead of expelling another sob.

She couldn't see her hands in her lap, though she stared at the inky blackness of where they should be.

She felt Damian looking in her direction. Or trying to. It was hard to see her. And he wanted so much to ask what was wrong. To try and assuage her fears and anxieties like he had tried so many times already.

But before he could, angry footsteps sounded in the hall and they both stiffened.

The teacher didn't speak. She elected to let the sharp clack of her heels on the hardwoods floors scare the students she was trying to catch instead. To let the harsh sound and fear of getting caught because they did something bad, ride apprehensive nerves up their shoulders.

Through the door, they her heard her getting closer, and closer. Click, clack, click, clack. Each footfall resounding ripples of audible vibrations into the air.

Damian was closer to the door and sat as near as he dare, listening intently.

Closer, and closer.

Damian didn't want to get a tonitrus bolt. He couldn't. If Henderson learned they didn't go straight to the nurse's office, surely they would get one.

Closer, and closer.

The steps felt unbearably loud as they approached nearer and nearer, and sweat glazed the back of Anya's neck.

Closer, and closer. Until she was right outside the door and walked past with a displeased sigh. And left. She must have stepped out of her classroom at the noise she heard, but she couldn't leave her students unattended for long.

Damian and Anya released the breath they'd been holding, and Anya shuddered, instantly feeling the urge to cry again as if it had been put on hold like a telephone call and was suddenly back, ready to continue as it had been.

She took another deep breath, willing herself to keep together, willing her thoughts to stop thinking of the things she couldn't bear to think about if it couldn't be true. She wanted it to be. But she was scared and hesitant. She didn't know how to let go of what she had to grab something new. Like a monkey, swinging from one vine to the next, releasing one to grasp another.

"What do I do?" A strained whispered escaped her lips from where she'd buried her face in her knees.

Damian was quiet. In the darkness of the supply closet, she could believe she was the only one here as she waited for him to say something. To think something. And the moment was drawn out too long and sucked dry of any of the comfort that Anya had felt earlier.

"You could stop running away." He whispered back not unkindly.

"But—" She heaved a sob.

How did she do that? How did she stand and face something she wasn't sure she should be standing and facing? To stop running from the world when every bit of it told her she didn't belong there?

"You belong here." Damian repeated as if he knew she needed to hear it again and she hiccupped another sob into her knees. "Take it one step at a time." Damian mumbled. "And. . ." He hesitated. "I'll go with you."

That was part of the problem. She didn't want to do it without him. When had she become so attached to him?

Was it yesterday when she broke down and he sat there until she felt better? Was it today when he stubbornly refused to leave her alone and tried to help her? Or was it at the zoo? When he wouldn't leave when he realized something wasn't right. Or the lab. When he was. . . .there.

She had already failed to not get attached to him.

Not her fault.

Anya cried harder into her knees. She hadn't realized how much she had wanted to hear those words. Like she was given permission to even just consider that Kai was wrong. That she could have a life. That it didn't have to revolve around everything she grew up with.

For most of her childhood, she had questioned it when Kai said this world didn't belong to her, that she shouldn't be consorting with outsiders, and now that Damian was confirming her doubts. . .If it was at all possible he was right. . .if she could really, really have it. . .

"I—I want to b-be friends." She hiccupped.

Damian's thoughts instantly erupted like a gust of wind throwing everything it found in disarray. She felt him straighten apprehensively. "Y-you do?" He whispered hoarsely.

Anya didn't answer right away. She took a couple minutes to breathe and let the sobs subside somewhat before nodding. Then remembered he couldn't see her. "Mm." She hiccupped.

Damian paused before asking his next question, worried she would still answer negatively, though of course, Anya heard him think it anyway.

"T-then, you won't avoid me anymore?" He asked, strained in how softly he asked it.

Anya hesitated but shook her head. Then remembered. "No. . ." She whispered.

"Promise?"

Anya stiffened, reluctant to officially promise that. How could she? Every ounce of her told her to flee right now, to get away from the boy who knew too much and never let herself feel this kind of companionship with anyone ever again outside the lab. It wrestled with her desire to believe Damian was right. That Demetrius was right. But every bone in her body was uncomfortable with the present situation.

"Forger?" A slight edge hardened his quiet words with apprehension, though it wasn't harsh. He simply needed it. And if Anya couldn't promise, then what kind of friendship did they really have? What kind of friend would Anya be if she ran away from her own friends the way she had been? Damian knew it and he knew she could hear him know it.

She felt in his mind, the ever present resolve that he would be there if she needed him, but their friendship wouldn't quite. . .feel right.

She didn't want to be without him. She wanted to be friends. She did, she did, she did, and what was the point of telling him everything she just told him if they weren't? What was the point of telling him she wouldn't avoid him if she couldn't promise it?

"I promise." She hiccupped and though her common sense screamed at her foolishness and disobedience to her father, it felt right.

Damian took a deep breath and his hands on his face muffled the unsteady huff of air as she felt the motion of him leaning on his knees. "Good." He choked out.

Anya sniffled, taking another shaky, but calming breath, and exhaled it into the dark space between them.

It was better that it was dark. It was all-surrounding like a muffling blanket and it was quiet except for their breathing. It was a balm to Anya's tired mind. Her senses were blissfully numbed, her torrent thoughts slowed, giving her a moment of rest. Finding herself in a quiet, dark room instead of the bright, chaotic and vulnerable halls outside.

Damian got up and put a hand on the knob. "We should get you to the nurse's office." He said quietly, as if afraid to speak louder and break the once fragile, very breakable relationship between them.

Anya sniffed and wiped at her face. "Mm. . ."

Damian listened for anyone outside and when he heard no one, he cracked the door open.

Damian's form appeared against the light spilling in and he looked over his shoulder as he walked out, holding the door open for her.

Anya followed.

She felt the rope fray.

—

Authors Note: Agghh! Anya's finally on the path to healing! I have been waiting for this. Why did I do this to myself? Her journey has to be the hardest thing I've ever written, but it feels so worth it.