Disclaimer: I still do not own the divergent universe..that is all V Roth. I am still just the girl throwing stick figures into her thunder dome.
Chapter 11 - What I Meant To Say
Eric
It feels like a lifetime has passed since I sat at the meeting in Erudite with Jeanine then was ordered to take a team to Amity to wait for, and escort a transport from outside the fence.
I didn't know what was in the transport.
I never know on the occasions I get this same order. I just know that when it comes a lot of sitting on my ass is in store for me.
I spent three days in Erudite alone before I could even set out to Amity. That was three days of my life that I'll never get back. The first day was spent with Jeanine and making the rounds to different labs while she checked on their projects. This wasn't anything new for me. She often called me in to do this kind of thing with her even before I left for Dauntless and my transfer didn't stop her from doing it as much as my position allowed for.
What is new for me is the realization of just what my role has become over the years, especially since I've been part of Dauntless.
I'm the unspoken threat. The boogeyman that she dangles in front of those that displease her, warning them of the fate they will suffer at my hands with the snap of her fingers.
In this instance, she was using me to subtly threaten those that she has working on a particular serum that will come into play when or if she makes a move to take over the government. It's apparently not going well, the development of this serum, and she isn't pleased at all. It's bad enough that she needed a change of staffing and she had a particular person in mind to head up the project.
Problem was, they had no interest in this project and that was unacceptable to Jeanine. Because of this, I was called in to perform my unspoken duty.
I was specifically introduced to a young woman, Cara who is a few years older than me, by Jeanine during a dinner on the final night. It turns out that Cara is one of the rising stars in Erudite and there is a lot of buzz about her. I could tell that Jeanine is not exactly thrilled with this. It dims her shine but it also hints at a possible threat to her power.
Erudite reveres intelligence above all else and because of that, they have the practice of using the IQ of leader candidates to establish hierarchy. From what I could gather, Cara is very close to a match for Jeanine and that isn't something she will just let go. Unfortunately for the younger woman, Jeanine found the leverage she was looking for when it was revealed her brother transferred from Erudite to Dauntless.
The threats were so subtle anyone else would have missed them, but of course, I didn't. I couldn't miss the references to me and my position in Dauntless. How Jeanine would smoothly reassure Cara that, of course, I will do all I can to make sure Will does the faction proud and how he could follow in my footsteps and work his way up to leadership. This was all assuming that nothing, untoward, happened during initiation such as say...a training accident.
Even when I wasn't being made to shadow Jeanine I still didn't get to escape her or her minions.
The biggest one being my older brother Damon.
To say that he and I do not have a good relationship is putting it mildly. We never have and most of that is because of his very obvious jealousy of me. I never really understood what I could have possibly have done to make him so jealous, seeing as he is almost sixteen years older than I am. I get that the attention Jeanine paid to me for a few years before I transferred would have stuck in his craw, but I did transfer, and left him to be the suck ass he has always been.
Despite the fact that there is no love lost between us, Damon has always had this ability to get inside my head and mess with me. Nothing I do has ever been good enough and even though I know this, and I know hate that and him, I always seem to end up trying to please him anyway. Both him and Jeanine really.
Since leaving for Dauntless, and becoming close to Chase and Zach, those two have slowly lost their hold on me. Sometimes I think that the only thing that has kept me from completely 'going to the darkside' as Zach once joked, has been them and their friendship.
I keep this fact as hidden from the man that shares my blood and Jeanine as much as possible. But to do that, I have to immerse myself in the role and be the person they want me to be when I am there in Erudite. I would like to say I can completely fool them and they are none the wiser but that would be a lie.
They always seem to know and they always seem to make it their mission to twist everything to try and keep me on the path they want me to be on. Before leaving there, I was so wrapped up back into their machinations, that I was doubting everything that occurred between Kat and me.
It was all just really fucking with my mind and I was never so happy to get out of that viper's nest, even if meant I had to cool my heels in Amity.
I'm keeping myself as occupied as I can while here and that isn't hard to do if you set your mind to it.
Surrounding our city, are miles and miles of both man-made borders as well as ones made by nature, that we use. This border was established at the same time as the city and has to be repaired or reinforced as times goes on. Over the years, other structures were added to it including the permanent guard stations that are spaced out.
We even have guard stations out on the water of the bay that makes up one of the natural borders. One is an old lighthouse station and the other is an old ship that we keep permanently anchored in the bay.
I couldn't stray too far from the rendezvous point that I knew the transport would be expected at, but I took advantage of the almost week I have to travel to the guard stations I can reach and whip some order back into them.
Those guys can get lazy out there if we aren't careful, so leadership makes it a point to send out someone every three months to do a series of checks and drills. Every six months a perimeter sweep is done along the entire border and that can take a few weeks to do.
I reached out to Raze, the leader that is currently in the middle of this last sweep and let him know I'm going to handle a section of it for him.
Might as fucking well get something out of this trip besides being caught up in my head all the time.
Days are much easier to keep my mind occupied even with the text messages I get from Zach and Chase.
For the first three days, while I was in Erudite, these were kept to a minimum. Jeanine doesn't do well when she thinks my attention is on anything besides her and what she wants it on.
Max and the other leaders have just gotten used to the fact that when I'm there they can expect radio silence from me and my friends aren't any different. That might have been part of the problem for me and why after leaving Erudite I was so fucking confused and twisted about what I felt and what I was thinking because I didn't have my brothers to help keep my mind straight.
Zach and Chase both suspected this might happen and my first few communications with let them know for sure.
A simple question from Chase. 'How are you feeling about everything with Kat now?'
My response hadn't been favorable to her at all.
Leaving Erudite had my paranoia ramped up on high. My head filled with so many 'revelations ' and 'discoveries' about Divergents, the factionless, and Abnegation...
Every card that could be played to bring me back to heel was played masterfully. Especially from Damon and his constant digs about my past, our parents and their failure and shortcomings.
I'm sure those messages for those first few days would seem like I have split personalities. Fuck it feels that way to me at times. I don't know how my brother's put up with it but I can freely admit I'm grateful as hell that they do.
My phone pings with an alert and I grab it up off the small table beside the bed I'm stretched out in at the guard station I'm currently occupying. It's about an hour past dinner time both here at the station and back in Dauntless. I ate with the few guys stationed here but then after dinner came straight to the small room the ranking officer normally occupies but gave to me when I showed up.
I open the message to see it's from Chase. The content is a picture that he must have just snapped for me of Kat. It's not the first one he's sent to me. Every night since I got to Amity he's sent me something with her in it and an update on how she's doing.
Both of my friends have taken to doing this outside of our group chat.
With Zach, there aren't any pictures. From him, there are little stories or events that have happened involving Kat.
Like him telling me about the time Kat came to breakfast looking like she had some kind of rash all over her body. It turned out that Kat and her sister were both having a reaction of some kind to the soap and shampoo they were using. Zach only really mentioned this to me after he asked what the chances would be that I could pick up some crap for him while I'm in Amity. Stuff like shampoo, soap, lotion and bunch of other girly crap. It wasn't like I thought he was going to use that shit himself so I told him if he had a good enough reason for me too, then I would think about it.
He should have led with it being for Kat.
But that got me to asking a bunch of questions, which turned into him telling me the entire story. It wasn't exactly riveting in content but I still soaked it up anyways.
Kat is used to products that are either homemade by her family or from Amity in exchange for helping with harvest or various other tasks. The stuff she got from the commissary is pretty harsh and cheap, and her skin isn't handling it well. She refused to let her friend pitch in to get the higher quality crap and is determined to use what she has until it's gone.
So, I ended up taking a trip to the main compound of Amity where they have their own little open market and picked up the stuff Zach listed for me. Luckily, he had specifics on the list so I just handed over the slip of paper I wrote them down on, handed them to the girl at the stall, and let her handle it all.
Chase's messages usually included things about how her training is going. If she is still doing morning training and what he's observing of those.
Fights are coming up really soon and I hope to hell I can get back in time for them, but it's looking doubtful. She's supposed to have her first match the day after tomorrow and it looks like I'll still be hanging out here waiting for this damn transport.
I scroll through the different pictures I have saved that he's sent me and add tonights to the mix.
This one isn't as much of a close up as a few of the others he's taken. They are somewhere in the Pit and she's looking off at someone off camera, smiling.
She's always smiling in these pictures. Sometimes in the direction of the camera but most times she's looking somewhere else. I think that might be the only thing that helps me keep the irrational anger and jealousy at bay, that it's not him she's smiling at. I know that Chase and Zach are both spending time with her and I know they can't help that they get to do that while I'm fucking stuck here.
I groan at the thought of another day here and shut my phone off for the night.
That transport can't fucking come soon enough.
I wake up completely disoriented to the sound of faint beeping from a machine, the air freezing cold, and blinding whiteness coming from the room I'm in. The combination makes it difficult to grasp what's going on and where I'm at.
I'm unable to move much of my body besides my head and I blink as I turn it this way and that, trying to get more information. Voices are starting to pierce through the fog I'm under as my eyes start to adjust to the light.
"Please try and remain as calm and still as possible as you can, Mr. Coulter. You are still in recovery from your operation and it will take a little while for the anesthesia to wear off."
I want to ask what the hell the masked woman is talking about but my throat and mouth are betraying me. She doesn't stick around for me to work through the dryness to speak. Instead, she checks the fluids in a bag hanging from a pole beside the bed I'm strapped to and then speeds off to another side of the room.
By this time, it's all come back to me.
The transport finally coming through and me heading out to meet it.
Everything seemed pretty standard as we drove away from the Amity compound towards Erudite. I was in the back seat of one of the trucks assigned to escort it. My truck had rear position while I had two of my guys driving and manning the truck in front of the transport. I had my face buried in my phone and was in the middle of exchanging messages with Chase about my expected arrival back to Dauntless as well as his update on Kat and who she was matched against.
I was completely distracted and wrapped up in him telling me how Four matched Kat against an opponent she herself referred to as a joke. How she had been upset about that but even more upset about the fact that Four had sat her sister out.
Chase and I were arguing back and forth about what to do about it, if anything, while I complained once again about Four and his going so easy on the female initiates. But I couldn't deny that I was also relieved that she wasn't facing off against one of the guys right from the start and when I can't be there.
The attack, when it came, completely took out that first truck. They never had a fucking chance. The explosion was enough to blow the transport out of the path and back towards my truck. The next several minutes after that are a blur of working myself from the wreckage, trying to get my men out, and then being pinned down by fire from our attackers.
I was able to return fire and get a position on the factionless that came after us. There was no taking them out on my own, but I held them back and down as much as possible until the backup I called in for made an appearance. I barely registered that I was hit when it happened and I didn't have time to worry about it when I did finally realize if I wanted to keep the rest of my guys alive.
I guess I was hit a lot worse than I thought.
The same nurse bustles to my side again, carrying a tray of bunch shit but I can't really determine what any of it is. Some of it must be more meds to put me under because as soon as she pushes the liquid through the tubing for my IV, I start to feel my eyes and body get heavy again no matter how much I fight against it.
"Who did we lose?" I ask Max gruffly, my throat still raw from the surgery and my time being held under sedation.
"Gary and David were taken out with the explosion in the first truck. Adam didn't make it through his surgery. So in all, we lost three of our own, Erudite lost four of theirs, and the transport was a wash too."
"And the other's? Did we get any answers from them?"
"There wasn't anyone left to get answers from. The ones that were left advanced on your position, one of our guys spotted them. He put off a few shots and hit one of them. Apparently, that person had an explosive on him and it blew, taking him and the two others with him."
"So they kamikazee'ed themselves? That makes no fucking sense, Max. What the hell was on that transport?"
Max doesn't answer. Instead, he glares me to silence, then stands and walks over to look out of the window of my private room.
"You'll be kept here for at least tonight and tomorrow, but when you're released you can head back to Dauntless. I've been assured they've pumped you full of enough nanites that you should be good to go. I want a full report put on my desk as soon as make it in, and get with Chase to start an investigation in full."
"Yes, sir." I grind out while holding my tongue on anything else.
I can tell he's severely pissed off but I don't know if it's at me and my questioning things or about the attack in general. He stays staring off into the distance out of the window and I can see from his profile worry flashing there and that worries me.
There have been moments, brief moments, in the past where I have seen a sort of weariness on the older man's face, but he is normally unflappable and hard. It's moments like these that I wonder about what drives Max and keeps him going. This job is hard on me and I can't imagine what it's like for the leader of our faction.
He turns and walks over to pick his jacket up off the back of the chair and for a second it looks like he might be about to say something as he looks at me laying in the bed. He gives a shake of his head and pulls his jacket on.
"Get some rest, Coulter. That's an order." He says as a parting comment while walking out of the door.
As soon as the nurse relayed the doctor's determination that I would be free to leave in the morning, I started disconnecting myself and demanding my clothes.
Fuck waiting another damn night I'm all about getting out of here this second.
They don't even have clothes for me besides what I was transported to Erudite Medical in. The shirt I had on was trashed. They had to cut me out of it when they got me into surgery. I grimace at the blue scrub top I'm handed before the nurse scrambles out and away from me to leave me to dress.
Max was right about me being good to go after the round of meds I was given on Jeanine's authorization. I look at myself in the mirror of the bathroom and run my hand over the two new additions to a collection of scars I've gained over the years.
The surgery removed the bullets and repaired the internal damage, while the nanites did their own thing to heal the wound at an accelerated rate. Right now the wounds were still a really angry red looking circular marks. The redness will fade and I'll be left with two smaller round scars.
The only souvenir of how close I came to meet my end.
It wasn't my almost death that's on my mind and has been from the time I woke up, but those we lost. Their death has left me pissed as hell and it doesn't help one damn bit that I can't even tell their families what really went down.
Max will leave this to me, but the only thing I can and will tell them is that they were with me when factionless attacked us in Amity.
I don't give a shit that I know without a doubt that I'm going to end up being blamed for this somehow. That the worst is going to be automatically assumed and that I was in some way behind their deaths. What I did and do care about is that those men can't be recognized for their actions. They won't ever really be fully recognized for being the soldiers we train our people to be, and in the end, for giving their lives.
This is an aspect of Dauntless that isn't talked about, not openly at least, and I'm sure that the other factions don't ever have it cross their minds. But it's always on mine and it's always a weight on my shoulders. One that's just grown over the years.
With every death certificate I sign or witness, it gets heavier and the blood on my hands seems to get thicker. It's something I've come to live with and just accept as part of life, part of life as a Dauntless.
Or I thought I had.
Maybe it's the fact that it happened at all or maybe it's that fact that I have no clue why it happened in the first place. That there was no meaning for to it. Those men died for nothing in my eyes, deaths they didn't deserve and for what?
What was worth a suicide mission to those factionless?
I know I'm not going to get the answers I need from Max and honestly, I may never find out since the transport was blown to shit, but the time when I did ask questions and just followed orders blindly has well and truly ended. Between this incident, my time at Erudite and my eyes being opened by Kat, me along with my brothers are determined to start looking at things a lot more closely.
It probably didn't help my current mood and eagerness to get back after Chase's last update was to inform me about him doing some after dinner training with Kat.
Scratch that, I know it didn't help. I was seeing red at the time.
It didn't matter that her sister and friends were there with her. I couldn't help but feeling pissed that he was doing that with her at all.
That was my place. That was our thing. And the entire time I was stuck in that bed I couldn't help the flood of visions of the two of them. Eventually, I calmed down. It took a last round of meds, a couple of hours rest and a few updates from Chase that I knew he was sending as the training progressed, but I was able to see my jealousy was irrational.
I probably look like a complete mess as I leave Erudite medical. It's late at night by the time I make it to the train. I could have pulled rank or name dropped and had someone from Erudite drive me back but I'm ready to be gone and don't want to risk that Jeanine or anyone else will stop that from happening.
Once I make it on the train I wearily sink down onto the ground and recover. The meds do help significantly but my body still feels like I got ran over by a truck. I would love nothing more than to head straight for my apartment, take a long fucking shower and then sack out but I know Max was not playing when he said he wanted me working on my report as soon as I'm back in Dauntless.
I settle in for the ride to prepare for the long night I know is ahead of me.
"Fuck," I groan as I let myself into my apartment, stripping as soon as the door clicks behind me.
I have only one goal and thought in mind and that is my shower. I don't even care that I'm leaving a trail of my clothes along the way, I'm to far gone to care about it. Doing that report and then sending out a few orders and requests to start the investigation took the last of my energy.
I crank the water to the hottest temperature I can make it, reach into my cabinet over my sink and down a few of the pills the nurse shoved at me before fleeing the room as I was walking out.
Steam is billowing inside the shower enclosure by the time I step in and another groan of relief escapes me. I let my head drop forward and lean against the wall as I let it work on me.
As the tension starts to seep from me, thoughts that plagued me earlier come back to haunt me. Earlier it wasn't just jealousy and anger I was feeling about Chase spending so much time with Kat. If I'm being completely honest a good deal of what was fueling me is the honest belief that there's no way she wouldn't want to go for him.
Not even counting what happened that day on the roof and how badly I fucked up, there are a whole host of other reasons. Reasons that I know are all stemming from my own insecurities that aren't helped by my recent encounter with a couple of master manipulators but it doesn't stop them from actually being valid and true.
Chase is really a much more personable person. He's easy to get along with and all anyone needs to do is take a look at our friendship to know that for a fact. He is also a hell of a lot more socially stable, meaning he knows how to be sociable. He does the relationship thing from time to time and never has issues with finding a girl that wants him for more than just a quick fuck.
While I don't have issues in getting someone to fuck when I want, girls don't exactly line up or really seek me out. When the physical urge strikes me I hook up, get what I want and get out of there. It's never personal or what you would call passionate. There's no kissing and very little foreplay on my part. There are no awkward next morning's or sleepovers and they damn sure never make it to my apartment, my personal space.
As far as I have been concerned, it's just a function of the body. As for the girls themselves, they get to mark it on their scoreboard, Eric the asshole leader. I'm nothing more than a claim to fame and the temporary rush it gives them to be with someone like me.
I'm a dick with a Capital D and that is on my good days, even with people I call a friend. Outside of Chase and Zach, I don't do the socializing thing. If I don't have to interact with someone for work, to get something done or something I want, then I don't. I haven't had the urge to do anything that would be considered fun in ages. I honestly don't even know if I know how to have fun anymore. I don't normally laugh or smile easily. I'm moody as hell with a temper to match. I over analyze, obsess and read too much into things.
There isn't a single fucking thing that I can think of that would make a woman like Kat go for a guy like me, but I want there to be.
I want to be the kind of man that she could see something with. While I might not know where or how to start with her I do know what I do and do not want. I don't want the physical and I don't for damn sure don't want her to want me just for that either. I don't want to be her experiment or rebellion phase. And while Zach made it clear to me that my thoughts of befriending her first are good, I know I don't want to stay in that 'friendzone', I've head other guys joke about before.
I never thought I could be an all or nothing guy when it comes to this crap, but that is exactly what I am feeling for her.
I finish washing after I've taken about as much standing under the steady stream of water that I can and then flip the water off.
All this thinking has just exhausted me even further and I know there is no use continuing. Tomorrow is going to come quick and then I will find out if I completely destroyed any chance I might have had with Kat. When I show up for her training in the morning, I'll have my answer and I can figure out things from there.
It takes two cups of gulped coffee while I stand in my kitchen to even be able to see straight enough to get out of my door. I probably could have gotten away with skipping most of the morning, sleeping in. I wasn't even expected to have been released from the hospital until later this morning, to begin with.
But I knew I would have to face the day and the faction sooner or later and I might as well get this shit over now. Hiding away would just make all those rumors, that I'm sure are already circulating already, that much more believable in their eyes.
There are going to be hard feelings and tempers. Now more than ever I would need to be alert to walk these fucking halls. Carrying around so many fucking knives on a daily basis might seem like overkill and me just trying to be as intimidating as I can but it's not without a reason.
I grimace as I rinse out my coffee cup as I feel a lance of pain and regret at what I knew I was going to face. I've always told myself that I don't care and it doesn't bother me one damn bit. That I've become numb to it over the last eight years. That has always been me doing what I do best, push all of that shit aside so I can do what I need to do.
Now, though, it hits me hard that this is what Kat will be hearing about, how she will see me. It doesn't leave me feeling exactly hopeful for my chances with her with this added to everything else but I'm not about to give up.
The two cups of coffee are hardly enough to get me going so I had head to the dining hall where I know Chase will be waiting for me. I was able to at least send him off a message once I got back to Dauntless late as fuck.
He and Zach had both bitched at first about me not messaging them as soon as I found out so they could have at least met me on the train. I know it had been hard on them both to stay away from the hospital but we all knew we couldn't risk Jeanine and my brother got wind of that.
Even with the need for more coffee, I had the desire to skip it and go right to the training room to see if Kat was already there. A stubborn prideful part of me was holding back, already railing at me that it was bad enough I was going to be apologizing to her, which is another first on my list of 'shit you'll never catch me doing' .
I even said as much to my brothers via text when I was still ranting and raging after leaving Erudite. They both had bluntly told me then I could kiss any chance with her goodbye, that I could sit back and watch as some other guy that was man enough to realize he wasn't always right and knew when to admit it. They got me with the part about watching her move on to some other guy that could and would give her everything I might not be willing to.
I'm scowling at that memory and how that made me feel as I enter the dining room. My eyes instantly land on the only occupied table where my brother is sitting facing me with the unmistakable back of Kat facing me.
My stomach does a lurch and makes my scowl get deeper until I see Chase looking directly me. There's no mistaking that his eyes are sending me a message that I better wipe the scowl from my face if I don't want to end any attempt to make it right before I can even start it.
I moved away from the door and went directly to collect myself a cup of coffee and worked to make my expression as neutral as possible. They are talking about something as I approach, with Kat even laughing softly. That cuts off before I even make it to the table and I see just the tiniest of flinches in her body posture when she looks out of the corner of her eyes to see me at the end of the table.
I hesitate for a split second before I nod in Chase's direction as he turns his head and nods. "Chase. Kat. Morning."
She's looking directly at me now and looks both surprised and wary of my appearance and greeting. That knife in my gut twists.
"Morning Eric. Good to see you back from those patrol runs you've been on. I'm sure it feels good to be back finally too. Although, I'm sorry to hear about Gary and David. They were both good guys and will be missed." My brother was being sincere in his tone and the words but I also saw he was trying to be helpful with letting that slip.
Her look of shock and worry was hard to miss but what stunned me was her response.
"You were out on patrols?" She said in a tone that was half repeating the words and half asking for confirmation. Before I could respond though her forehead scrunched up and she looked down for a second before meeting my eyes. "I'm sorry to hear that we lost anyone."
There was no accusation or blame in her tone. It wasn't, anyone you lost, but we . The simple understanding and commiseration, along with the brief look of worry she directed towards me, is making it hard for me to respond but I find a way.
I nod simply back to her and move to take a seat beside her. "They were good guys and good soldiers. It just shows that it could be any of us at any time."
Chase casts a brief pained look into his cup, then looks back up grimacing slightly. "It's why we have to be the way we are during training. And not just what you are getting right now in initiation but in all the trainings you will get as a member. Remember when were talking about that with Lynn one day, that what position you get will determine the depth of the training and what will be concentrated on?"
Kat nods after taking a sip of her coffee. "I do. I also remember Lynn complaining right along with you that there should be a standard training that all Dauntless should be kept to no matter if they wash dishes or patrol the fence." She laughs a little then shrugs and looks down at her watch with a frown and grimace. "Speaking of training. I really need to get started on mine. I got a later start on it this morning that I would have liked."
Chase rolls his eyes with a sniff and shrugs back at her. "Can't blame that one on me, Kat. I released all of you guys with more than enough time to get hydrated and go to bed. You guys are the ones that decided tattoos and shopping were the better activities."
"Worth it," She smiles softly with a shrug and looks at the table while raising a hand to softly touch the collarbone of her left side, lightly brushing along the neckline of her t-shirt and where I can just make out black against the cream colored skin. It's just enough of a glimpse to see that it might be a feather with other things included, just a tease that has me tempted to pull the shirt aside so I can run my fingers along it and get a better look at it.
The second tattoo she's gotten. The first one, the one just behind her ear and that is a completely unexpected design, had me feeling a rush of desire when I saw the chemical representation for adrenaline. It also had me storming into the tattoo parlor when I heard Bud put it up on his wall for God and all to see and possibly pick. He has it set aside in back along with the other one he said goes with it. Serotonin.
I clear my throat after shifting uncomfortably not understanding why seeing ink on her has always affected me so much.
"I'll go with you if you give me just a moment to finish my coffee." I tell her while holding her eyes. I kept the tone as neutral as I could, not really commanding her. Admittedly, I'm not really giving her much choice either.
She might not be willing to go back to the friendliness we were starting to establish before but I know one thing for sure about Kat and it is that she will always try to maintain the proper respect for those of higher rank than her, regardless of personal feelings.
"You don't have…" "I mean, I'm sure you have much better things to…" "I just don't want to inconvenience you."
She rambles this all out, stopping and starting again mid sentence. It's as if she doesn't want to refuse me but doesn't want to accept either. She didn't refuse me outright though and that's something isn't it?
Jesus, it's better than nothing.
It's better than the looks I dreamed of her giving me all through the little sleep I did get.
"It's not an inconvenience," I pause and look away, hating the doubt I see creeping back into her eyes. So I take a drink of my coffee and see Chase shaking his head slightly across the table, closing his eyes slightly and wincing. I swallow and look back at her. "Kat," I say and the rest of the words get stuck so I have to cough slightly and continue. "I'm sorry…" Her head whips around to face me and her eyes widen slightly, but she just sits there not saying anything. As if she's waiting for me to go on. "Um...that's I haven't been here to continue the morning trainings...and for missing your first fight."
Going by Chase's look, I failed pretty badly on my apology, but it isn't him that I'm concerned about, it's how she takes it.
She nods and looks down at the table. "I understand though." She takes a breath and looks back at me. "I….if you wouldn't mind then….thank you. I would like the opportunity to work with you again."
Her tone and wording is still more formal than what we established before I put my foot in it and she still had a bit of a guarded look in her eyes, but it's a start.
Chase clears his throat and I see his lips tilting up in the slightest before he rubs a hand over his lips, drops it and shrugs while he looks between us.
I know he's going to give me shit later about this entire awkward ordeal but at least he saves and decides to help me out a bit more instead. "Zach said something about being in a mood for pancakes now that he has access to a better kitchen again. Wouldn't want to miss those, Kat."
Kat's smile and laugh before she nods in agreement let's me know that my brother has just saved my ass from another awkward as hell moment at the end of training. I was already wondering how I was going to pull off getting her to come along this morning.
I gulp down my coffee then reach for Kat's cup after I see she's already done with hers. I get up quickly and go over to return the cups and Chase meets me halfway with a couple of water bottles that he hands over to me with a smirk.
"I'll take a case of beer as a thank you," He mutters under his breath as Kat grabs the small bag she had sitting beside her and moves towards the dining hall door when she sees me turning towards it too. She's blushing as she waves towards Chase. "Good luck," He says with meaning and waves back to her.
I nod but don't vocally reply. Honestly, I know I'm going to need a lot more than luck.
I'm going to need a miracle.