An Intangible Pattern - Fate Bound.

Closing In

"Are you hungry? When did you last eat?"

"Not since yesterday afternoon," she sniffed and wiped her eyes. He fetched a box of tissues from the bedside table and offered her one. She accepted it gratefully with a mumbled thanks.

"Stay here, I'll make us some breakfast." He said, rising from the bed and slipping his dressing gown around his shoulders.

He left Alex hugging her knees in the bedroom and went into the kitchen where he filled the coffee pot and rummaged around in his fridge. Soon bacon and eggs sizzled in a pan and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted through the cottage. He heard Alex's soft footfall and soon she emerged in the kitchen looking wan and disheveled, but fully dressed.

"You didn't have to get up yet. I was going to bring it through," he reproached her.

She shook her head, "I should go home, I've troubled you enough."

"Please, stay and have breakfast. I'll feel better knowing that you at least ate something. Besides, it's almost ready."

Alex nodded meekly and sat down at the table as he divided up the bacon and eggs onto slices of bread. He set the sandwiches on the table and poured the coffee before taking his own seat.

Alex tentatively bit into the corner of the sandwich.

"I haven't poisoned it, you know." Noah said with an ironic smile.

"I'm just not used to eating so much in the mornings." she replied, taking a bigger bite.

Noah smiled in amusement..

"What?" Alex asked, self consciously.

"Its nothing. I was just thinking of Graeme: he always insists on a full English. I can hear him now, 'The fuck is this lad? Where's the rest of it?.'" Noah chuckled, affecting his mentor's gruff voice and affronted expression.

Alex choked on her coffee, it was an uncanny impression, but it looked odd on Noah. He was too poised, too dignified to get away with the coarseness that gave Graeme his roguish charm.

"He'd have had a heart attack by now if he wasn't an alpha." Noah mused wryly as he bit into his sandwich.

Silence fell between them as they ate. Alex put her sandwich down and chewed slowly, staring thoughtfully at the table.

"Is it that bad?" Noah asked.

She swallowed and said, "No. It's just strange, that's all."

"The sandwich?"

"No, us."

He looked quizzically at her. She took a sip of her coffee, met his eyes and sighed, "Up until now, I didn't want to see you as a person. It was easier to hate you that way. I think I needed to hate you to make sense of it all. Right would still be right and wrong would still be wrong. The world could still make sense, but the world isn't like that is it?"

"No." He replied solemnly.

"Where is the line then? There has to be one!" She muttered.

Noah sighed and sat back pondering her question.

"On the one hand there isn't one. Not a real one. That's why we all seem to trip over it and end up on the wrong side." He smiled ironically.

"But it's there isn't it? It's real, we all feel it when it's been crossed."

"Yes. But perhaps the line can move? Depending on the circumstances, I mean.

If we look at everything objectively, nothing is good or bad. It's just something that happens and none of it matters, and in the grand scheme of things, we don't matter..."