Here's chapter 36!
Laurien looked to the side, only to see Erik following Raven's car with his gaze. He took a step forward, raising his hand toward the tail lights, but before he could, Laurien swept his legs out from under him with her powers. He collapsed to the ground in a heap, and in his effort to save himself from further harm, a small object escaped his grasp and rolled across the pavement toward her. Curious, Laurien summoned the cylindrical object into her hand and rotated it between her fingers. It seemed to be some sort of case containing film, though it looked much more high tech than anything she recognized being used in cameras. Whatever was upon it, she knew that he had taken it from the table in the Embassy, and knowing Erik, it most likely meant that he had some ridiculously nefarious purpose for the information.
Laurien's gaze shifted back to where Erik was righting himself, eyes searching the ground for the roll of film before he noticed her standing across the square from him. His eyes narrowed as he spotted it in her hand, though at the same time, a small smirk crept its way onto his face. A wordless challenge had been set between the two of them.
In the corner of her eye, she saw the glints of several cameras as they captured the scene before them, and she was suddenly glad of the anonymity her aviators provided by shielding part of her face. A growl redirected her attention from Erik to where Hank was being held up on display like an animal at the zoo before another group of flashing lenses. Heat ignited within her and before she knew what was happening, her hand was raised and the cameras were each smashed into their own jagged lump of expensive equipment as the restraints around Hank promptly released him.
She let out a shuddering breath before a loud barrage of sirens alerted her to the arrival of multitudes of police cars, prompting her to turn on her heel and bolt. Laurien crossed the street at break neck speed, narrowly avoiding passing vehicles and frightened civilians as she leapt onto the curb and slipped down a nearby alleyway, all the while aware of the fact that Erik had begun to move as well.
As she ran down the long maze of alleyways, her hands fumbled with the buckle of her belt before finally unlatching it and ripping it from the loops of her jeans, though only to launch it into a dumpster as she sprinted past its putrid stench. The mouth of a random alleyway opened up onto a bustling road bursting to the brim with shoppers and merchants, somehow all unaware of the chaos unfurling just a few streets over. Laurien reluctantly slowed to a fast walk, taking off the aviators that were slipping down her nose, as she weaved through the people and scanned the stores for an appropriate place to duck into for the next few minutes.
The strong scent of freshly baked bread mixed with the acrid clouds of smoke in the air met her nostrils, only diminishing the panic in her chest a bit as the massive crowds of people pressing against her started to cause an impending sense of claustrophobia to rise within her throat. She tightened her grip on the roll of film, wondering grimly as to what was so important upon it. Laurien seriously considered tossing it into a passing trash bin on the street, out of sight and out of mind, though she found that her fingers were rather unwilling to part with the film. She instead stuffed it in her pocket.
Laurien's heart jumped in terror when something latched onto her arm and yanked her back, but when she looked down, she found that it had just been the curved wooden handle of an umbrella. The owner of which, an old woman with a gentle face and striking green eyes behind delicate eyeglasses, apologized profusely as she carefully disengaged Laurien from the handle.
"Ne vous inquiétez pas, Madame." Laurien replied, forcing out as calm as a smile as she could manage under the circumstances, her eyes flitting up anxiously at the passersby as she made to continue back on her way.
The woman's hand quickly grasped her own before she could leave, keeping her in place. Concern bled freely through the woman's touch. "Est-ce que ça va, ma chérie?" She asked, her voice soft and clear, nostalgically reminiscent of Laurien's Oma.
Laurien nodded stiffly, releasing a pained breath that clouded in the cold air before her. "Oui, merci."
The woman didn't look at all convinced, but quickly squeezed Laurien's hand comfortingly before releasing her. Laurien continued on her way, though as she raised her hand to move a strand of hair away from her eyes, she found that it was shaking. Alarmed, she shoved it into her coat pocket, balling it up into a tight fist in an effort to control herself.
After another few blocks, Laurien took a chance and glanced back at the crowd following behind her, only to finally spot Erik's face a few dozen metres away. Not too far behind were the expertly pressed uniforms of military men hurrying along, their eyes scanning for the mutants responsible for the chaos. In a split second decision, Laurien quickly started heading in their direction. Her mind screamed at her to stop, to turn around and keep running, though she persisted, awkwardly navigating her way through the sea of people and feeling like a salmon swimming upstream as elbows and shopping bags thumped against her.
Her stomach squirmed as she noticed that one of the military men had recognized Erik's back and they were swiftly gaining on him. Laurien's wrist flicked of its own accord, prompting a large vendor's cart to overturn directly into their path, spilling a multitude of fruits, vegetables and baskets onto the sidewalk as the men stumbled into one another as to not trip on the contents of the cart. Erik's head turned at the sound of the commotion just as one of the men slipped almost comically on a banana, and, seeing her opportunity, Laurien bolted forward and closed the gap between them. She collided with Erik's chest, latching onto the soaked material of his coat and pushed him back into the ideal cover of a small alleyway between two buildings.
He let out a small grunt of surprise, grabbing onto her wrists and trying to twist out of her grip, but with the added aid of her powers, she easily moved him into an alcove within the alleyway and away from the prying eyes of the street.
He stilled when his eyes took in her familiar features, though he soon frowned at the shade of sea green that her eyes greeted him with. He opened his mouth to say something, but Laurien hushed him by reaching up and pressing her hand against his lips as she peered warily around the corner at the street. The military uniforms soon passed, though Laurien did not allow herself the luxury of a sigh of relief as she turned her attention back to the man she was pinning against the wall of the alcove.
They stood staring at one another for a moment or two, as words were silently conveyed through their ragged breaths and the subtle movements of their eyes. Erik's hand came up tentatively to cup her face, his thumb gently rubbing against her cheek as she reluctantly savoured his touch, revelling in the compatible transmissions of waves passing between them.
"We need to go." She whispered, the words tasting like acid in her mouth as the dampness of his clothes seeped into the surface of hers.
Erik's forehead creased ever so slightly as he looked down at her, his fingers burying themselves intricately in her messy hair. Despite her words and her anger over what he had done, her breath caught in her throat as a sudden strange sensation coming over her. Giving into it, she raised a hand to rest on the back of his head to bring him to her level.
He winced at her touch, startling Laurien and snapping her out of her reverie as she frowned when she found a hot substance on her fingers. She held her hand in the light, seeing a bright red streak slathered across her skin. "Shit." She murmured, immediately yanking off her scarf and balling it up to apply pressure to his head, though only to have her hands stilled by Erik's own warm pair.
"I'm all right." He stated, his hopelessly blue eyes boring into her own as his lips gave her a small smirk. "Just a souvenir courtesy of Beast."
She sighed, shaking her head dismissively before shifting her hand to hold his. "We need to get back to the hotel." She said, making to move and drag him along with her.
"No." Erik protested, tightening his grip on her to pull her to a stop. "Charles..." He faltered, his eyes lowering to his feet as he swallowed with difficulty. "Charles will be furious."
"Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you tried to shoot his sister." Laurien reasoned half-jokingly, but her jaw clenched tightly as anger flared within her. "Now, let's go."
He looked ready to protest again, but restrained himself and nodded solemnly. A tiny spark of hope ignited in Laurien's mind, as she wondered if he perhaps already regretted his actions at the embassy and was ready to atone for them, but she almost certainly knew better than to get her sights up at this point.
She buried the thought in the back of her mind before pulling him into the depths of the alleyway, a faint humming sounding from the back of her head as her feet blindly led her and Erik away from the busy streets and toward the quieter outer reaches of the city. After they continued for over an hour, multiple uncomfortable blisters had arisen angrily as the thick material of her shoes chafed against Laurien's heels, though she tried her best to ignore them.
As they neared the mouth of an alleyway leading out into a reasonably still street, Erik tugged on her arm, prompting her to halt in her tracks. "Might we be able to take a moment to rest." He gasped as exerted breaths tore themselves from his lungs, the effects of his injury starting to noticeably wear on him. "My body is not as it once was."
"Take your time." She muttered, releasing his hand to allow him to slide down a nearby wall. She let out a tight exhale of air as she noticed that the previously faint buzzing in her head had grown gradually into a roar as they had run, greatly diminishing the enjoyment of the delicious pulsations of blood coursing through her body at the activity.
Laurien couldn't help but take note to how heavy Erik's breaths were as his chest heaved mightily underneath his coat or the way that his Adam's apple bobbed as he struggled to swallow. She looked away, steadying herself by placing both of her hands against the frozen surface of the adjacent wall as she tried to regain her bearings. Flashes of red painted the underside of her eyelids as she shut her eyes tightly, her head pounding. She strained her ears to listen to the sound of the cold Parisian air filling her lungs instead of the remnants of the gunshot ringing in her head.
"You all right?" Erik asked, startling her once again.
"Yeah, I'm fine." She spluttered, daring to open her eyes again and glance down at the awaiting street down the alleyway. "Just– just wait here." She instructed before striding out onto the street.
The building immediately to her left towered over her like a monstrous beast with cracked grey skin and red paned windows for eyes as they glared across the street at a smaller cottage-like loft that stuck out in Laurien's mind as something she might see in a travel catalogue. It was apparent that both were apartment buildings, and of the two, she found herself trusting that they wouldn't get nearly enough strange looks entering the angry building than going into the pristine cottage.
She quickly ducked through the mouth of the monster and once inside, she made her way toward an assortment of mailboxes, all of which had varying amounts of letters and other paraphernalia inside them. Her eyes quickly flitted to the one that was near to overflowing with credit card bill payment requests and took careful note to the according apartment number, an idea coming to mind. She shoved the film roll, now slick with sweat from her sweaty hand, deep within the jungle of mail, before heading out to retrieve Erik.
"Let's go." She muttered, snaking an arm around his waist for stability as she lifted him to his feet and started to guide him inside.
"What are you doing?" He asked, his brows setting together in confusion.
"We're not going to make it back to the hotel without being seen at this rate, and we need to lay low somewhere for a while, until this whole debacle you've caused settles down for the night." She stated dryly, hoping that her anxiety didn't betray her by bleeding out into her voice. "Besides, you're going to catch pneumonia with these clothes on outside."
They climbed the stairs of the apartment building, periodically stopping on each floor for Laurien to check the numbers upon each door. It wasn't until the fourth floor that she was greeted with a matching string of three numbers, prompting her to flick her wrist at the doorknob and hear a satisfying click of the lock opening under her command.
"After you." She murmured to Erik as the door opened of its own accord.
The man standing before her only raised a questioning eyebrow in response before accepting her offer and taking the first few steps into the apartment. Laurien followed, locking the door behind her and barring it with the chain. They walked down the narrow hallway, the walls of which were barren, save for a few taped up instant photographs of various places, ranging from the palm trees of some tropical place, to Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kyiv. It was only when they reached the main sitting room, furnished with just a solitary lawn chair and a decrepit couch, that the walls exploded in a colossal collage of photos, each depicting the apparent journey of a young man across the world, accompanied by a variety of kind smiling faces.
To her left, Laurien found her lips curling into a small smile at what seemed to be an entire wall dedicated to pictures of food. Her stomach grumbled subtly, reminding her that she'd barely eaten on the plane, seeing as the very scent of the scrambled eggs that had been prepared nauseated her to the point of her dry heaving into the plane toilet. She felt terrible for doing it, but she quickly scanned the large room for the kitchen, and instead found a small fridge tucked away in the corner next to a disconnected sink filled with dirty dishes.
"What happens when the owner comes back?" Erik asked from his rather uncomfortable looking spot on the couch as he gingerly prodded the back of his head with his fingers.
"He won't."
Erik frowned. "How can you be so sure?"
"Mail box is full, one such letter contains a bill for his Mastercard, which was last used a week ago in Thessaloniki for a flight to Tokyo that left yesterday." She stated, scrunching up her nose at the sour smell emanating from a carton before putting it back on one of the shelves. "So, unless he changed his mind, and flew from Greece to Paris and forgot to throw away the reeking milk in his fridge when he got home, he's certainly not going to come back to his apartment any time soon."
"You never cease to amaze me."
She raised her eyebrows at him, not quite sure if there was sarcasm in his voice, but she didn't bother to respond as she turned back to the contents of the fridge.
"I'm so sorry for what happened, Laurien. I didn't know that she–"
"Let's not talk about that right at this moment." She interrupted quickly, resting her tired head against the freezer door of the fridge with a small thump which effectively quieted the noise that had still been building in her mind. "Besides, it wasn't your fault."
"Laurien…"
"Stop, please." She asked, hoping that he would sense the finality in her tone. "That's all for now about the matter, alright?"
"You're not even going to get mad about–"
"Oh, don't even get me started." She warned, bitterly. She finally decided upon a decent looking takeout box filled with noodles and started to make her way toward a seat, only to stall and do a double take when she noticed an out of place item upon the table, immediately recognizing what it was from the many shiny pictures in various magazines. Microwave ovens were relatively hard to come by, and extremely expensive. How had a seafaring university student come upon such a treasure?
"But I am not going to get into it right now." She continued distractedly, eyeing the machine and touching it carefully as if it were a nuclear weapon. "I'm hungry, you're frozen, we can argue at a different time about how you fucked up."
He smirked at her, though when she didn't respond in kind, the smile slowly disappeared from his face. "You know they say those things suck the nutrients out of your food." He stated matter-of-factly as he leaned back in his seat, changing the subject in such an abrupt way that she hadn't thought possible.
She stared at him blankly for a moment, before defiantly continuing to place the noodles in the microwave to be reheated, keeping unwavering eye contact with him as she pressed in the amount of time.
"The food's going to explode of radiation poisoning if you put it in for twenty minutes." He commented dryly.
She turned and saw, to her great embarrassment, that she had in fact hit the zero one too many times. "Fucking hell." She muttered under her breath as she pressed the proper amount of time instead.
As the seconds ticked by, each inhale sent an unfortunate twinge in her lungs, her eyes steadily set upon the microwave oven as she flexed her hands, wanting to rid herself of this lingering uneasiness that she had bestowed upon herself. Her gaze finally drifted toward the wall of photos once more, scanning the multitudes of personal memories that were not hers to cherish. In the middle of the collage was a world map with a whole systematic assortment of pins, ranging from red, to yellow, to green. She guessed that green represented the places where he had a pleasant time, as she noticed that Spain, New Zealand, and the recently independent and renamed Botswana were pinned with luminous green. In contrast, red must have been for terrible experiences, considering that the only red pins were stationed multiple times upon the state of Texas.
"Why did you come back for me?" Erik's voice broke through the silence, diverting Laurien's attention from the map for her to frown at him from where she stood, before she turned back.
"Hmm?" She asked calmly, though somewhat irrationally annoyed that he kept interrupting her train of thought.
"You could have just left and met up with Charles again." He elaborated, his intense blue eyes piercing through the hard exterior of her shields. "With what I had done, I wouldn't have blamed you."
She raised an eyebrow as her fingers rubbed at her jawbone, thinking through her words carefully. "Is that what you would rather I'd have done?" She wondered, keeping her voice as light and innocent as possible, wanting to get a straight answer out of him for once.
"No." He made to say, but the blaring beep of the microwave countdown interrupted him, prompting her to tend to the steaming box of noodles as the scent of soy sauce filled the room. "So, why didn't you?" He pursued.
"Would you believe me if I said that I don't know?"
"No."
She couldn't help but smile to herself at his response as she grabbed a stray pair of chopstick from an open drawer and pushed it shut with her hip. "I don't know then."
And that was the truth, or at least what she hoped to convey, because in short, what she was feeling now was quite the opposite of what she thought she should feel in this moment. For goodness' sake, the man had just opened fire on a friend in front of a barrage of cameras, civilians, and high ranking military officials, she should be furious, but for some reason, she was finding that she could just quell her anger at the moment.
Sighing, she stepped toward a nearby lawn chair, but was soon distracted when she saw the slight tremble of Erik's shoulders. Setting down her box of noodles, she moved to open the armoire beside the couch, quickly riffling through the mounds of clothes that the man had left behind to find something acceptable. "Here, go put these on." She said, tossing a pair of pants and a shirt into Erik's lap before she dove back into the drawer in search of a pair of socks.
"Won't he mind?" Erik wondered aloud, nodding his head toward the photos of the young man.
"I think he'll mind more if he comes back to find your dead body on his couch." Laurien countered, pursing her lips as she found yet another holey pair of worn out socks. "Lesser of two evils, your choice."
Erik stayed still for a moment before eventually shrugging off his coat and shirt, revealing the toned upper body that she remembered from a decade ago, marked with the same scars and scratches that he'd collected over the tortured years of his life. Her hand unconsciously fell to grip her stomach as it flipped uncomfortably, reminding her of the pain that scars left upon the mind, even years later. She turned back to the armoire, finally finding an appropriate pair and tossing them to him as well.
"You should also probably take a shower, seeing as I doubt that fountain water was clean." She added quietly, the energy having seemingly drained out of her in the last few seconds.
Erik shifted uncomfortably in his seat, glancing around the room quickly before addressing her directly. "Um, before that, would you mind..?" He asked softly, lifting his fingers to the back of his head as an end to his question.
She nodded silently and searched around the apartment for a needle and thread, but when she went to open a drawer, she stopped abruptly as she saw the constant shaking of her hands against the handle. As a faint blue hue crept into her sight, Laurien clenched her hands together tightly, her breaths coming out in a shuddering mess as she tried to compose herself, but found that she was ultimately failing. In an effort to distract herself, she made to grab a glass that was on top of a highly decorated box and put it in the sink, but her fingers clumsily glanced off of it and sent the glass hurdling to the floor. It shattered into large jagged pieces that shot out in all directions, the sudden sound of which made Erik jump to his feet in alarm.
"Shit." She cursed, her frustration rising to a peak in her chest as she picked up the shards with her powers and let them tumble into the trash bin by the sink. "Sorry."
"Laurien." Erik's gentle voice met her ears, again interrupting the incessant swirl of thoughts, though this time, she was grateful for it.
"Yeah?"
"Are you all right?"
Laurien froze, seriously regretting saving him at this point from the amount of questions he was posing her that she didn't want to answer. "I told you earlier that I was."
"Doesn't mean that it was true then, or now for that matter."
"Touché." She said, turning around and taking a deep breath as she knew that he was right. "It's just– um." Laurien tried, but her voice wavered, prompting her to cough and try again. "My hands." She said, lifting them up in a quick motion before changing her mind and self-consciously hiding them in her coat pockets.
He frowned, the slight wrinkles above his eyebrow becoming more defined as he did so. "What's wrong with them?"
Laurien made an attempt to smile, but the muscles in her face just didn't seem up to it as the weight of everything seemed to collapse upon her once more. "Shaky." She managed out, wincing as her voice instantly sounded like the aforementioned word.
His eyes softened and he raised an open hand toward her, beckoning for her to come forward. "Here, let me see."
Laurien tentatively stepped forward and allowed his hands to envelop hers, the warmth seeping through her skin as a sudden calm overtook her. His thumbs rubbed smoothly against the ridges of her knuckles, the skin over which had been split and bleeding profusely the first time he'd held her hands in such a way. Her mind wandered to the distant memory in the forest, and she found it strange that it had been cold then too, even though it had only been the start of September at the time.
He bowed his head, effectively attaining her attention as her gaze flicked up to meet him. "Of all the things I missed about you during those ten long years, the one I missed most was your eyes." He murmured, his pupils dilating slightly as her vision flashed a soft shade of violet. "Especially when they do that."
She could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks as he gathered her hands within his and placed them against his chest so she could feel the faint palpitations of his heart beating a steadily racing rhythm on his ribcage. "I'm so sorry, Laurien." He whispered in a quiet, yet firm voice, as his eyes glistened wetly. "For all I have done, I am sorry. My actions took me away from you, and that, I will always regret."
She bit her lip to stop it from quivering underneath the pressure of the flood of emotions that streamed between them, feeling as if her lungs had frozen up within her at the same moment that her heart was lit ablaze. She couldn't remember ever experiencing such a sensation in her lifetime, though as Laurien stared up into Erik's awaiting eyes, the two blue oceans filled to the brim with anticipation and worry, they sparked something familiar within her. Something she thought she'd long since buried a decade ago.
He leaned down further, slowly at first, his eyes flitting down to her mouth as if asking for permission and with a slight tilt of her chin, she allowed his lips to capture hers. His mouth moved softly against hers, gently bringing her back to simpler times back in the kitchen of the mansion, when there wasn't any global threat of annihilation or an apocalyptic future at stake. When she had fewer scars, fewer horrors experienced, fewer nights spent lying awake and fearing to close her eyes. They were all just a group of misfit kids with their two young mentors guiding the way, playing silly games that they'd carried on from the summer camps they'd frequented as children. There was hope, there was laughter, there was a family forming with each passing day.
Oh, how she wished they could return to such a time.
This was a difficult chapter to write, but it is also the longest to date.
I watched the first season of Orphan Black, if anyone is looking for someone to obsess over Delphine/Cosima, I'm your girl. On my vacation time, I had a "Michael Fassbender Reading List", so I read The Snowman by Jo Nesbo, which was amazing, but a little bit corny even for a crime novel. And then I read The Light Between Oceans, and I honestly want to weep every time I think about it or am remotely reminded of it.
Thank you again for your patience and love, the 1 year anniversary of this story is coming up in a few days, and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for sticking with me this long. I love you all... (Frank reference) Hope you all enjoyed, please review!