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[She follows as he draws back, stealing one last kiss even as he tries to get them in order. He absolutely right in his actions, of course; if they keep kissing like this, they really won't ever get home, and home is precisely where she wants to be: home and alone with him, free to do whatever they please.

Still. It's sore, losing him, and Rosalind licks her lips as she tries to get herself together.]

. . . for now.

[She doesn't want to lose his arms around her, either, but that's another treat that she'll simply have to postpone. With a little sigh she steps back, taking his arm once more.]

It's going to take quite a few hours for me to tell you everything that's gone on the past few months. Certainly we'll have a delay once we arrive home. So you'd best ask right now what you're most interested in learning, because you've got til we reach the end of the walk to hear it.

A full accounting of the events I've missed. I'm sure it won't be the strangest bout of pillow talk we've ever engaged in.

[But he feels it too, the soreness of having her and then losing her, and even if it's not rubbed raw with the agony of five months, it's still a sentiment he shares. Of course he shares it; how couldn't he, when it's something she's feeling too?

So he doesn't let her go, or at least he doesn't let her go unscathed. His free hand slips up to the comb in her hair, catching it easily and tugging it free with playful mischief, as much so she'll have to suffer through her long loose hair for the trip home as so he'll have something to occupy his fingers with for the duration.]

I ought to ask about any number of things, I suppose. Your friends, your students, your living circumstances. But...truth be told, the only thing I really want to hear about at the moment is you.

Robert--

[They're not in Columbia, and a woman with her hair hanging loose around her shoulders isn't the fashion scandal it once was. But still, honestly, she'd taken the time to at least put her hair up, the least he could do was allow her to stay respectable until they get home, what a prat, that Robert Lutece, absolutely the worst, and yet all she does in retaliation is nudge him with her hip.]

. . . well. I've told you I've a shop. Lutece Labs, so we shan't even have to modify the name of the store in order to accommodate you. It's more an alchemist shop that what we used to have, frankly, but it's pleasant to have something to do during the day. When I'm not busy with that . . . there's plenty of strange creatures that reside just outside the city. I'm building up a bestiary.

[Ah, that's another thing she has to tell him . . . but not yet. Let that wait until tonight, when they're locked away at home and she's got his arms around her.]

That's not what I meant, my dear.

[He turns her comb over and over in his fingers, letting her pull him along as he turns his gaze to the horizon and reflects, at length, about what he's about to say next. The trick is to find the right words, gentle while still no-nonsense, and press her just enough without pushing her into a place where she doesn't want to be.]

You cried on my shoulder. You — the accomplishments can wait with everything else, Rosie. I want...I meant that I want to know about you.

We've not been out of touch with each other for a period longer than a day or two since we were seventeen. Seventeen, and now it's been five months. I want to hear your feelings — as much because I think you need the chance to say them as I need to hear them.

[There's a slight stutter in her footsteps, something minor that she corrects almost immediately, but which gives her dead away. And again, she thinks of what she's trying desperately not to: all the horrors that have happened to her over these past five months, all the little things she's going to have to confess to him.]

. . . I hardly know what you want me to say.

[Yes, she does. She knows precisely what it is he's getting at. But it's not half so easy as that, not for her. So perhaps she'll be forgiven for the slight stiffness in her tone as she says:]

I missed you, of course.

...I want you to promise me you'll ask for what you need, when you need it.

[He says, softly, and lets it alone. There's pressing and then there's pushing, and he's done what he can. She'll meet him halfway when he needs must be met there, or so he hopes.]

If you'll do that, then that's all of your feelings I'll demand, for right now.

. . . later.

[It's an agreement to that promise. Later, she'll ask him and tell him later, once she's a little more used to the fact he's still here next to her. Rosalind grips his arm a little tighter, her eyes focused on the cobblestone beneath them.]

I promise. Later.

[And in the meantime . . . Rosalind glances up at him.]

Ask something else of me.

...Your students. You said you had four of them? Two official, and two others, I think it was.

[He reaches over with his free arm, diverting only a moment to put her comb between his lips to hold it for the duration, and smooths a few locks of her loose hair back behind her ear in as comforting a way as he can.]

And your friends. The ones you want me to meet. Help me get prepared for them?

[Ah. That's nice, and Rosalind's eyes close for a few seconds, enjoying the brush of his fingers against her skin.]

. . . mm. Yes.

[Strider, Kurama, Urameshi, Fugo. There are a few others, Everett and Brando and Diarmuid, that he'll have to know of as well, but those four are the ones she ought to get him acquainted with first.]

To begin with, they're all male, which is as surprising to me as it is to you, I assure you. The two that are most decidedly my students are Dave Strider and Pannacotta Fugo, the latter of whom prefers to be called by his last name, not his first.

[Kurama will have to come last. He requires an explanation far too detailed for a casual chat. Rosalind gathers her hair with her free hand, pulling it all back behind her shoulders, and continues:]

Strider helps me dissect various corpses of the stranger sorts of creatures that live on this peninsula. He has an interest in paleontology, primarily, but is keen enough on this. He also . . .

[She wrinkles her nose.]

He's a bit similar to us, in that he can manipulate time, if not space. He can travel back and forth within the span of a few minutes, creating doubles of himself. Fascinating, really, if not a bit imprecise in terms of definition, and I haven't gotten much chance to experiment with him on it.

Another wonderchild.

["Another", he says, because obviously she'll know who he's thinking of when she invokes the topic of teenagers with phenomenal supernatural powers, but it's curious how she says experiment with him, as opposed to on him. It's evidence of a softer Rosalind, a more interconnected one, and it wounds him a little bit with guilt that his first impulse is to think how good that is for her.

There can't possibly be anything good in the fact that they've been separated. He can't and won't believe that. And yet...if without him, Rosalind has moved on her own to seek out people, find students, make connections...

Loving someone means wanting what's best for them, doesn't it? Even when it's not — or more than just — you.]

You must be fond of him, if you've accepted him as a lab hand.

I'm fond of all of them, truth be told.

[She admits it without hesitation, because it's Robert. There isn't a thing in the world she'll keep from him, even if certain emotions take a little while to pry out.]

Fugo is . . . he was my first student. I wanted someone to run to the library for me, and in exchange, I offered him physics lessons. But he's exceptionally bright. Studious, too. There isn't a lesson we've had where he's slacked off or done less than his absolute best. It takes him very little time at all to grasp the more advanced lessons I've shown him. I've even written out equations from the Lutece field for him.

[Which she wouldn't have done at all if he'd been too slow to grasp the concepts.]

He's . . .

[She pauses.]

I'm fond of all of them. But Fugo is the one I would worry over most, should something disastrous occur. He's only sixteen.

[Well, they're all around that age, actually, but the rest of them can handle themselves. Strider has his powers, Kurama has his plants, and Urameshi can vaporize monsters with ease. But Fugo? He's quiet. He's brilliant, yes, but he's also skinny and nervous and terribly lonely.]

. . . and things of that nature do often occur here.

That's quite the exchange. A library trip for an ongoing course of physics lessons? The lad got the better end of the bargain by far.

[He leans into her as they walk, giving her a little bump with his shoulder that comes followed by one to her hip.]

He's not possessed of time powers or something of a similar sort, I take it. Not —

[He hesitates, not sure whether he should go the length of saying it outright, or if he should just leave it unstated. But ultimately, he decides: ]

Not another Elizabeth.

No.

[She glances up at him again, catching his eye.]

There's quite a few different people here, and most of them have powers of some kind or another. But nothing like Elizabeth. Nothing like us, for that matter.

[Ah, there it is: their home. The apartment building in the farthest corner in the city, right on the edge of the forest. It's a hell of a hike, but she likes her privacy, Rosalind does. Robert might object to the walk, but they can move, if he truly wants. They can do anything, she thinks, and leans her head against his shoulder again.]

Urameshi is next. Yusuke Urameshi, one of my not-quite students. He's . . . he takes getting used to. He's loud, and crass, and a little overwhelming. But he . . .

[She hums softly.]

He heard from a friend that I had never earned the title of doctor. Without prompting, without even truly knowing me, he felt compelled to use it. He's kind, beneath all the bluster and banter, and cleverer than he gets credit for.

I say, Rosie, did you go out of your way to find the most difficult-to-get-to living circumstances available in the whole of this place?

[GUESS WHO SPOTTED THE APARTMENT BUILDING, TOO. GUESS WHO'S GOING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT WALKING AS MUCH AS HE'D DECIDED TO COMPLAIN ABOUT ROWING.

Damn, he's going to have a well-rounded bod after all this, though, tell you what.]

Small wonder you've taken to that one. "Cleverer than he gets credit for" has always appealed to you, hasn't it?

How quickly you go from comforting to complaining. Before you continue, keep in mind only one of us is wearing heels, and it isn't you. We're nearly there.

[SUCK IT UP BUTTERCUP.]

And the fourth is . . . .

[She hesitates, then. The fourth is someone who will require a great deal of explanation, because to explain him will mean explaining the wendigo, and the hallucinations, and all the little details that have endeared her to Kurama over the past five months.]

I'll tell you the details later, once we've settled at home.

[Read: once we've banged at least twice.]

But he's my closest and dearest friend here. And the only person, to-date, who knows all the details of our relationship.

...The fourth is the one to whom I owe a debt.

[He makes it sound like an interpretation, like he's just taken the sum total of her words and her pauses, her thought and her hesitation, her choices and her omissions, and added it all together into a picture of the current state of affairs.

And really, that's hardly surprising, because it is in fact precisely what he's just done.

But he tugs her over again, dropping a kiss against her head amid her long loose hair, and shifts to sling an arm around her shoulders instead of letting her hold his at her side, instead.]

That's the one who's been looking after my girl in my absence, is that it?

. . . yes.

[God. My girl, it's been five months since she's heard that, too. She'd forgotten how much she enjoyed it. It's such a simple sign of affection, just as absent as that kiss, and yet something in her absolutely leaps at the words.]

Mm. Though it hasn't been entirely one-sided. He's only sixteen, though he acts far older. But . . . yes.

[Ah. There they are, and Rosalind smiles as she reaches for her keys. It's a rather nice apartment, all things considered, and she's got the entire first floor to herself. Frankly, they've got the building mostly to themselves; there's only one other occupant, and she's a quiet girl.

The apartment itself ought to be familiar enough: Rosalind has tried to make as much like their old home as possible. One enters directly into the kitchen/dining room, and heads down a hall to reach the living room. Along the way, there's three smaller rooms branching off: a bathroom and what presumably were once bedrooms, though Rosalind has converted them into a miniature library and a small laboratory.

She's quite pleased with all of it, frankly. But she's gripped with an odd sort of shyness as she waits for Robert to pronounce his judgement. Surely he'll like it, and yet Rosalind waits, gone just a little stiff under his arm.]

There's already a queen bed. We shan't need to change much.

...Rather missing the holes in the ceiling and the exhaust tubing scattered all about, isn't it? Can't say as I'll mind that, honestly.

[He says, which immediately confirms that he's recognized it, too. God. Their home. It's not identical, naturally, but it's similar enough to invoke the deja vu; it's akin enough that he feels a little bit like he had when he'd tumbled through the Tear way back when, manufacturing memories of an apartment that he's never set foot in before now.]

Oh — no, no, wait a moment. Come back out here, just wait.

[And he tugs her back with him, drawing her back through the doorway and into the hall just one single step — just enough room for him to bend and scoop her into his arms so that he can carry her over the threshold more properly on their second go into the apartment.]

There. Be a shame to have not done it properly, don't you think?

[She doesn't realize what he's doing until he's done it, which leaves her yelping as she grabs for him, fingers knotting reflexively in his shirt. It had begun as a desperate reach, but within a moment she's relaxed, her fingers smoothing out the wrinkles she'd just created, because of course this is nothing new. She's had two decades to get used to his picking her up.

Robert, she might have protested on a normal day. She loves being carried, it's true, but it's not a particularly dignified thing to have done to oneself, and Rosalind is nothing if not dignified. But today . . . today is a day of exceptions. It's a day to ignore all the usual rules and conventions, and simply give in to all the whims she's had to go without these past five months. It's a day to indulge, to flirt and tease and be carried. It's most certainly a day to tip her head up so she can kiss and nuzzle along his jawline.

Besides: while he's picked her up plenty of times, he's never done it like this. Never in relative public; never acting like the couple they truly are. Everett had been so appalled her Robert had never married her, and yet here he is, carrying her over the threshold.

It's silly. It's self-indulgent. It's ridiculously, wonderfully soppy and romantic, and Rosalind laughs as they cross the doorway.]

I missed you.

[It's meant as a fond thing, but it comes out quieter than she'd intended. Not just a feeling, but a confession, something murmured against his neck between kisses. And with it comes the hint of something a little more raw, something far more intimate than what she'd told him on the way here. She kisses his neck again, and it's a more desperate thing this time.]

God, Robert, I missed you so much. It's been five months, I haven't--

[Her voice wavers, and Rosalind bites down hard on her bottom lip, effectively cutting off both her sentence and her tears.]

Rosie.

[He makes his decision briskly, more out of impulse than anything else, spurred on by her upwelling of emotion and the way that it drags almost painfully at his heartstrings; in one easy movement, he kicks the door shut with his heel, setting it swinging before swiftly carrying her through the house to one of the couches in the living room.

There'll be no fussing about this time with setting her down and settling in next to her, the way he'd done at the train station. No, this time they're in their own house, in private, and so he quite simply sits and pulls her down with him, keeping her squarely in his embrace until such point as she's squarely in his lap, instead.]

Do as I say, now, and let it out. We're home. I'm right here. Just...

[He reaches up, fingers curved lightly from the palm of his hand as he strokes her hair back behind her ear again and lets his fingers linger even after he's done.]

Just let it out, Rosalind. Five months of bottling it up — but you don't have to anymore...

[This is what she'd wanted. Never mind everything else, the teasing and the kiss and the information, no, it can all wait. This right here is what she'd been after, right from the moment she saw her Robert had finally come back to her. She sits in his lap, her head resting on his shoulder, her face pressed into the crook of his neck. She's still got his jacket on around her, and the entire effect is that of being cocooned: safely surrounded by him, braced in on all sides and kept safe.

It isn't easy to let go. Not even here, not even with him. She can't simply burst into tears, though it won't be long until she does. Rosalind stays pressed up tight against him, her breath leaving her in little pants, clinging to him as if that might prevent him from leaving her. And she has to cling, she has to, because--]

You might yet leave.

[She whispers it.]

This happened last year. I read about it, I checked-- a flood of people arrived, and only a few ever stayed. They were barely here a week, and you might--

[Her mouth trembles, and now her voice rises, the words slipping past her lips in a desperate stream.]

You might leave me, Robert. I'm going to wake up one morning and you won't be there, you'll just be gone! I've been without you for five months, I nearly died and you weren't there, and I can't, not again, I can't do it, Robert--

[It comes out like a flood, once he's managed to get her to finally open the gates holding it back. But she does, she finds it in herself to gather it up and let it go, and so for the first short while it's all he can do to just hold her and try to comfort her with his presence and listen.

He's known since her first messages to him on the network that there was something frightening her. Now at last he's becoming privy to what all that is — and as soon as he hears it articulated, it's small wonder that it is frightening her so.

You might leave me. The ultimate cruelty, he thinks with sourness behind his eyes and a sick twist in the pit of his stomach, to take something he'd once used as a threat against her in the past and make it potentially an unavoidable reality here again in the present. Separation is the one thing that Rosalind dreads most; he knows that full well. And now — now, it's not just separation that's on the table, but a short sweet window of togetherness to whet her appetite for it before snatching it away from her once again.

Small wonder she's clinging, and crying, and shaking. She hadn't sounded like that when they'd died — but she had when he'd been reluctant to come through the Tear to her.

But there's more than just that, and what she says after it are the things that end up terrifying him. I nearly died and you weren't there, she whimpers, and he goes cold all over, because there's so much wrong with it that he doesn't even know where to begin in trying to pull it all apart.

She'd nearly died? In the five months she'd been here alone, she'd nearly died?]

How...?

[It's a strangled, thick word that comes out mangled from his suddenly tight throat. But she won't need more than one word out of him, not when one single word says everything he needs it to.]

[This wasn't how she'd wanted to tell him. She'd thought to do it at night, once things were more settled between them, when she was gathered in his arms and all was calm. A confession, whispered against his throat and kept safely between the two of them. Not like this, not while she's so out of control.

For a long minute, she doesn't answer. It isn't out of cruelty, but sheer need: she can't string a full sentence together, not with how hard she's crying.]

T-there was--

[She bites at her bottom lip, trying to pull herself together long enough to get this out. A gaping breath comes first, followed by a deeper one, a slow inhale and exhale, until finally Rosalind is certain her tears have temporarily retreated. She wipes her cheeks, trying stupidly to appear respectable as she pulls back, as though Robert will care about her appearance.

(His arms are around her. His coat is around her. She's kept safe, she's contained, he's here, nothing is going to hurt her while he's here, nothing can ever hurt them so long as they're together--)]

There was a creature. There's so many strange ones here-- supernatural ones, ones we'd dismiss as fairy tale nonsense. I've been studying them, I was just outside our apartment, and one of them . . . it was hanging about the edges of the forest. It saw me and attacked.

[She's never spoken of this, not in detail. She'd admitted it to Fugo in one sentence, hastily offered, and even then only to explain the presence of Punnett. Strider doesn't know. Kurama had been there, and wonderful man that he is, he'd offered an explanation to Urameshi, saving her the trouble.

She's never had to tell someone, not in detail. She wavers and hesitates, uncertain as to how to tell the tale, her voice shaking the entire time.]

A wendigo, it was called. It-- it possessed me. It took over my mind, my b-body, just like that, it was--

[She laughs damply, a helpless little thing that isn't amused in the slightest.]

Rather like being caught by Fink's vigors, wasn't it? Except what it wanted was-- it was so hungry, it was always hungry, it wanted to eat. It wanted to eat everyone it could, and use me to get close enough to people in order to do so. So it took control over me, it--

[Her mouth trembles again, and Rosalind blinks hard, glancing away to try and hold out just a little longer.]

I just watched. I watched, I had to watch, I couldn't do anything, and god, it-- it talked to me, it told me just what it was going to do, how it was going to eat them all, how I was, and then in the end how it would kill me too, and I couldn't-- I tried. I fought it, I did, Robert, you must understand, I-- I c-couldn't-- I couldn't do anything, I had to just watch--

[She's trembling in his arms. It's all she can do to keep her teeth from chattering, and with a little shudder she presses in closer, as if that might somehow help.]

Shh, shhh...

[It's no good and no help to shush her, he knows, but it's instinct to do it anyway, and particularly when he's at such a loss of what else he's even supposed to do with all of the horrific details of her stay that she's confessing.

Rather like being caught by Fink's vigors, she says by way of comparison, and the ugly thought burns like sulfur fire through his veins. Of course he'd been aware of Possession, that hideous joke of an innovation; Fink had claimed it was for use on machines, and yet if there was one universal fact about Jeremiah Fink that never failed to hold true, it was that Fink would never turn down an opportunity for alternative applications — provided those applications stood to benefit him in some way.

And Rosie had suffered that. A monster had caught her, taken her body from her, her mind from her, and made her a prisoner in her own skin...

And she's been holding this in. She's been holding it in, all to herself, because he hasn't been there before now. She'd been captured by this...monster, controlled, forced to watch, threatened, tormented, manipulated —

And he hadn't been there. He hasn't been there.

(I fought it, she whimpers, and it breaks his heart. As though she's afraid she can't be forgiven unless she tried. You must understand, and it sickens him, to think that she's so desperate to insist that she'd tried, as though she'd be somehow less if she hadn't.) ]

Take your time. Take your time, and let it out. I've got you. Tell me what happened, Rosie...

[Tell me what I missed, he thinks, and feels his guilt bear down.]

It never-- I never--

[She'll get hysterical if she isn't careful. Rosalind curls up closer on herself, kicking off her shoes so she can draw her legs up, and bids herself to hold off on breaking down for just a little longer.]

My friend. The fourth one. Kurama, he-- it went for him first. He's so . . . he's powerful, it wanted to eat something powerful so it could grow stronger, so we went there first, and he--

[She waves a hand by way of explanation. She can't possibly go into all the details of demons, not here and now, but she doesn't have to. Robert will accept whatever explanation she offers, knowing she's telling him nothing but the truth, no matter how fantastical or unrealistic it sounds.]

He could tell. He can smell things like that, he knew it wasn't just me. He let us think he was fooled, and he lured us out to the forest, and when I tried to kill him, he--

[She waves her hand again.]

Plants. He can control plants. He tied me up with one, he tried to get it out that way, but it-- you can't kill a creature like that in such a fashion. It used me as hostage. It stopped my heart to prove a point. And so he let me go, and we ran back to the lab, and it-- I'd developed a way to distract a wendigo. A lure. A little vial filled with the scent of blood and gore. He poured it out on the tiles and the wendigo left me, and--

[One last effort, but this is the easiest part. And now her voice is just a little steadier, her gaze harder than it had been a moment ago.]

We killed it. Together. He immobilized it, and I cut its throat.

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