Freak

5

At first she curled up on her bed but it felt wrong, it was too comfortable, so instead she rolled into a little ball under her bed and let a few tears run down her cheeks.

A few people had come and gone from her tent, asking her to come out and eat, Abigail and Jack even left her a bowl of stew. Dutch came and told her he wasn't angry no more and that she should join them around the fire but she didn't budge. No one even got as much as a reaction form her, until Arthur came that is.

***

The panic Arthur had felt when he went to wake up Blue and found her missing from camp was beyond anything he thought he could even feel. The first thing on his mind was that she had somehow been taken from camp, he even accused Micha for selling her off to Mrs. Green. In the end they had all decided she must have simply walked away and so most of the men spilt up to go looking.

Arthur himself had gone to Valentine and though he reasoned she couldn't have gotten that far he looked though every store just to be sure. He came out empty handed and when darkness came he went back to camp hoping she would be waiting for him at the fire with a bowl of steaming stew.

It turned out Sean had found her wandering around the woods and taken her back where she had been scolded by Dutch and she was now hiding under her bed, refusing food and not talking to anyone. Fearing the damage Dutch's potentially harsh words could have done to the girl he quietly walked into her tent and crouched down to look under her bed.

And just like he was told, there she was, curled up in a ball.

"Blue?" he tried to sound as soothing as possible but she tensed at his voice. Reaching out his hand he gently touched her shoulder but feeling her flinch away he retracted it.

"You alright kid?" no answer "I heard Dutch yelled at ye', he didn't mean to me to scare you, you know, he was just worried, like all of us" he could hear a slight sniffle, so she was crying...

"Don't cry princess, come out of there so we can dry off those tears" she made no indication to move so he laid down flat on his stomach and scooted under the bed, it was a tight fit but he managed.

"Come on Blue you can't stay here forever" carefully he wrapped his arm around her coaxing her towards him. She tried to wriggle out of his grip but eventually gave up and let him pull her out. Once she was free he sat up, back against the bed with Blue, still in a tight ball, in his lap.

Gently running his fingers though her hair he untangled some knots' feeling her slowly but surely relaxing against his chest.

"I aint gonna pretend I'm not a little mad at you too kid, when I found you gone... well it scared me half to death you know" lifting her face so that he could look her in the eyes he gave her what he hoped was a stern enough look "you left without telling anyone and we thought you might have gotten hurt of even taken"

"I'm sorry..." it was the first words she had said since he got there.

"I know you are, but you have to promise me you won't do something like that again, okay?"

"I didn't know..." she said, and he realized that he'd never actually told her she couldn't leave on her own, he took it for granted that she knew but then she was a kid... she couldn't always know right from wrong at that age.

"Well now you know, no more tears over this, okay."

"Okay" drying off her wet cheeks with the edge of her blankets he allowed them a few moments of silence before he motioned for her to get up.

"Come on, let's go and sit by the fire, I'm sure Dutch wants to talk to you properly" noticing how reluctant se was he grabbed a hold of her hand "If he starts yelling I'll yell back at him, how about that?" he winked at the little girl.