Shimmer |✓|

//Alliance// Part 3

"Hey! Passport and plane ticket! Remember, that's part of the deal! No takesies-backsies!"

Tidus rolled his eyes with me. "We'll keep him for as long as you need. Jeeves will make sure he's comfortable."

"Good." I pulled him further aside, lowering my voice because the warlock was snooping. "I have to admit, this is, like, the most chill I've seen you. Ever." I plucked the sleeve of his Space Ghost from Coast to Coast tee for emphasis. "Plus, Olyvia says you're not drinking live blood all of a sudden? What's up with that? If something's going on, we can talk about it--"

"You didn't read my letter. If you had, you wouldn't be asking how I am. You wouldn't be here at all."

"You don't know that." My hands retreated, stung. His curt tone was reminiscent of the same dry hostility he resorted to when we first met. He was pushing me away.

Tidus jammed his hands deep in his pockets and glanced away, eyes like the stones around us, impenetrable and unforgiving. "To answer your question, I'm fine. Olyvia shouldn't have said anything."

"Well, I'm glad she did. At least she trusts me--and that's saying something because she also hates me. Ti, what good has this time apart been if we still can't see eye-to-eye?"

He stepped forward, arms crossed. "You tell me." The lights flickered; his right brow shot to the ceiling.

I raised both hands in surrender. "I've gotten plenty good at controlling my magic--no more light shows from me." Yet the lights flickered once more. His gaze strayed to the ceiling but I was fixated on him. We rarely spoke anymore, unless our conversation had something to do with Catherine, the fire, or someone who needed killing. We were all business, no pleasure-and it was slow torture for me. Just when the future had opened for us, just when it was safe for us to stop sneaking around and finally be together... that light had vanished. We were lost in the dark, directionless, with no way to go from here.

I followed Tidus from the dungeons-through the lift and out the tapestry, Tidus silent the whole trip, me, opening and closing my mouth a million times because I could find nothing right to say. We paused in the hallway, each of us catching a whiff of something familiar...

"Ichor." My blood couldn't pump but it did run cold.

His ice-blue eyes narrowed. "And it's fresh."

"Tidus." I shimmered in his path, cutting him off before he could follow the trail. "Be careful, you don't know what you'll find. And you're not feeding live, which means you're weaker than usual. Plus, Olyvia and Hadrian aren't here and Chandler's on the Midnight--"

"Must I stake myself to go two seconds without hearing his name from you?"

I blinked, nonplussed by his scalding tone. "Well, I would talk about us but you always change the subject or fly away when I do. I told you how to make us better, but you won't do it. How am I supposed to fix that? I can't exactly magic my way out of this, now can I!" I stuck my hand on my hip. "Unless you know a love spell. Chandler won't teach me."

"Are you trying to irritate me?"

"It that a multiple choice question or true-false?"

"It's the last straw. I'm not some plaything to be manipulated at your whim." He inched forward, until I was close enough to wilt beneath the heat of those dark eyes blazing contemptuously down at me. "Be gone--or perhaps I shall do Catherine a favor and slay the dark knight myself."

"You're just upset. You don't mean that."

"Then you were right. You don't know me." Tidus stalked past me towards the corridor's exit, prepared to release his frustration on whoever, whatever dared stand in his way.