Event Private Finished Partners in Crime

Shay felt the freedom in her veins. She knew how to run through the forests, the mountains, and the cities. Running was a hobby Shay always had; ever since she could walk she was moving. Always moving.

"I'd hope so," she shot back without a beat before just staring at him. Nothing intense, at least not heatedly so. It was a soft, coaxing kind of stare, as though he were the only person in the world.

She cocked her head to the right; ear lifted toward him as he went on speaking. Derry's accent was much thicker than before, and Shay wondered if that was on purpose, or if it took him conscious thought to speak more clearly like he normally did. It took her a minute longer than normal to decode what he was saying.

"Your accent got thick there," Shay said without asking the question as to why. Some things were just found out with time, and Shay hoped they'd have that time, but she didn't feel like pushing and snooping then, even if Derry had always been a willing subject to her prodding.

"I'm scared," she admitted, her attention drawn back over to the vista of the wilds. Her lower lip trembled, but her tone was firm as ever without its regular brittle hardness typically brought on by this subject. "It was a bit of a sensory overload once you were there, too, I guess. This safe place among all these unknowns. It didn't matter when no one was looking, but crowds make me anxious again... like they used to."

He was careful not to touch her, or loom over her and Shay appreciated that. She turned so she could push herself to his front, bury her face in his chest and ball her fists into his jacket. She breathed in the scent of security. It reminded her of her first night back alive. Of finding a safe space and rejoicing in it, among all the darkness that had been in her world then.

Shay wasn't used to hands coming down through the water to keep her from drowning.

"I just.... I love you. I try not to say it; I try not to feel it. But... but I do. I love you. I -- I can't breathe when I'm with you, and when I'm away, it's hard to think about anyone else. I can't breathe.... I... Good things -- safe things always leave the moment I have them in grasp, and I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do."

Shay shook her head slowly, rubbing away infrequent tears on his shirt.

"I didn't want to sound desperate or weak, but I don't want to be alone anymore. I don't want to fight alone. I don't want to stand alone. I don't want to lo--lose all this humanity I've struggled to keep.

"I had Theo, then, and I think maybe I have you now. I hope to whatever almighty power there is, that this is a trend. A time of need and some kind of gray Knight comes along with two swords."