There is a pain that squeezes at my heart. I do not want to leave his side. I am hugging my legs to my chest, balled up as small as I can get. I sit in a padded chair in his office, watching as he flips through some paperwork. I have my head leaning against the peak of the arm of the chair where it meets the back. He has been so far for so long, and I want him to stay here with me. His eyelashes are long, his eyes flitting from line to line. He reaches with one hand for his cup, swirling it for a moment and taking a slow sip from it. He sets it on his desk, and I flinch at the loudness of it. I am not quite accustomed to all this. He lets out a sigh. "Helen, relax."

"I am relaxed."

He sets down the sheets with another sigh, and his eyes comb over me in a slow and deliberate sweep. "Pull up a chair."

"What?"

"There's enough room for another over here." He begins shifting the items on his desk to one side, leaving a space for me at his right.

I almost leap out of my chair, and I push my chair over with a nasty squealing creak. I hear something like a cat coughing up a hairball. Peeking over the chair, I see him with a hand pressed against his mouth. "Are you laughing at me?"

"It's just jarring."

"What is?"

"What's with the rush? We have all the time in the world."

Ah, fuck. I press my face into the back of the chair, taking in a deep breath, the upholstery smells of sandalwood. Jonah, you are a man of expensive tastes.

I give it another heave, and the snort that follows is hard to ignore. I peek over the chair again, and he smiles at me all innocent, while being anything but. "Did you hear something?"

I take the rest of the distance between his desk and me in one final lurching trip, and when I sit behind the desk, a feeling pools in my gut. He always looks so ominous behind this monstrosity of a desk without it making him too small. He considers me with half-lidded eyes, his chin balanced in the palm of his hand. His fingers bear no sign of the luxuries he surely did not have access to behind bars. The idea of him hitting the spa post prison release tickles me.

"I'm sorry. This is all new to me. I'm not getting in the way or anything?"

He shakes his head, and then returns to his papers. He writes with one hand, the other rests against the desk surface. His hands don't shake the way mine do when I write, and his handwriting is precise and striking. His pen skips along the paper from line to line, but I am not reading anything he writes, rather I examine the way he writes. The curls of his y's, the dots on his i's. His signature is swooping and curly.

The index finger of his unoccupied hand taps at the desk. I imagine the warmth of his fingers. I can remember the sparks they left behind in the past. When his fingers brushed over my wrist as he cared for my injury from the Leitner. When he pried my hand from my lap in the car ride. When he untucked my hair from behind my ear. My stomach is swooping and dancing at the memory.

He lifts his hand off the desk, his elbow resting against it, but his palm faces up offering itself before me. I stare, considering it, he wiggles a finger, and I take his hand in mine. It is as electric as I remember. I enfold his hand in mine for a moment, and press it against my cheek. The heel of his palm just barely rests over my lips and I let a drawn out breath caress his slightly cupped hand. He draws in a sharp breath, brushing his thumb over my lips. He applies a bit of pressure, pushing against my lips for a moment, and then adjusts his hand. His thumb finds the other side of my cheek and he squeezes, tilting my head to face him.

"Hello," he murmurs, his voice a soft caress that sends shivers down my spine.

"Hey."

"I'm right here." My heart threatens to burst out of my chest at the reality of it all. His reassurance swells against my racing thoughts.

"I can see that." How am I supposed to accomplish anything when you're around?

"Just making sure you know." His stare is so intense, more intense than usual.

I cannot help but feel a surge of anxiety at this. I am going to throw up. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?" I cannot read anything from his face right now.

"It's different," I whisper. He does this thing where he looks at me–and really looks into me–and when he does, I cannot tear myself away.

His voice is soft, "You do realize I have missed your company too, right?" You make me sick to my stomach.

"So you say." I hate how I have to be reassured so much. I hate this uncertainty. How I know and how I feel always seem at war.

"You're so frustrating sometimes," he sighs. His hands find either side of my face. "I didn't ask you here to torment you, dear." He pinches and squishes at my cheeks, pulling and poking me.

What in the world are you doing, now? First, you call me up here, making me abandon my station. Then, you have nothing to actually talk about, but then you won't let me go to work. This is so cruel and unusual and–

"Maybe I just wanted to see you." Consider me doubtful. You could have come to see me in storage.

"Why do I," he pinches my face and I have to pause, "always have to come to you?" I get that you're the head and all or whatever, but I don't know. I feel so out of place here.

"I didn't want you to do any more work today." His hand entangles in mine, he traces a finger over the bandage that he applied to my wound earlier today. I had gotten a little carried away with an artefact, and then suddenly I had a meeting with Elias, and he wouldn't let me leave.

"You're always depriving me of my tasks." And I love my tasks. You're so annoying. He is so awkward with his hand on my cheek and his other tracing my scarred palms. His finger leaves a line of static beneath my skin where he connects with me.

"You," he takes a deep breath, "Stop being ridiculous. You're injured." Well, yeah. You are the one that tasked me with my work with Leitner's. It was never particularly safe. "There's more, and you know there is."

"Ah! 'Tis but a flesh wound, my lord!"

"You have this awful habit, and we're going to have to discuss it some day." I open my mouth to come up with some kind of diversion, but he is first to distract me. His lips press against the palm of my hand, a surge of warmth floods through me, melting away the tension that had settled in the air. It's a simple gesture, yet it sends my heart into a frenzy, beating erratically against my ribcage. He's a lighthouse in the storm of my thoughts.

"Yes, Leitners are dangerous, but you have a problem with self-preservation, and by problem, I mean it is severely lacking," he remarks. I would have the courage in me to interrupt him if he wasn't so attached to me at this point in time. His lips grace my knuckles.

I choose to tease him in return, a sloppy attempt to mask the overwhelming raging waters coursing within me. "Aw, are you worried about me?" I quip, trying to keep things light-hearted despite the weight of his words. He grasps onto me as if I am the most delicate thing in the world.

"I wouldn't want to see anything bad happen to you," he admits. There is a hand around my heart at his words because I realize that no one will ever see this side of him. "None of it matters if you…just, take care of yourself better." He always reminds me so gently that I am not alone.

"Okay," I reply, and there is radio static swelling within me. In the midst of uncertainty and chaos, he remains my constant.