Travelling Crises *ON HOLD*

V

Wren and Aaron were not, as it happened, dead. Dying, sure, but not dead yet. The greater bit of the explosion had been on the Doctor and Sage's side, leaving only very large falling rock for the opposing students to dodge.

The two now sat atop a dusty marble boulder in silence, reflecting upon their lives thus far. Each had much to regret, and even more to hide.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Aaron broke the thick silence.

"Talking uses up more oxygen. You're killing us faster."

"Dark thoughts."

This earned him a poisonous look to which he only smiled. Wren sighed.

"Though I suppose, what would be the point?"

This made Aaron's smile disappear. "Of what?"

"Delaying death. It's inevitable. Why not just get it over with? What's the point?"

"The point's to live."

"We won't survive this," Wren scoffed.

"Not to survive, to live."

Wren looked at him thoughtfully. She supposed he was right, but she'd done terrible things, why should she live? She turned her gaze to her dangling feet. Another silence followed.

Aaron cleared his throat. "Well if we're gonna die here, I guess someone oughta know."

Wren lifted her head. "Know what?" she asked quietly.

"My secret. I'm bisexual."

Wren was taken aback. Not because of his sexuality, but as to why he was telling her. They weren't even close.

"There's nothing wrong with that," she mumbled. Why did you tell me? she screamed in her head. Now she felt in debt to him. Like she had to tell him her secret. Wren refused to die being in debt to someone. She was a Slytherin.

"My parents thought so. Last Christmas, I told 'em. They insisted that I was confused, kicked me out, and told me to come back when I decided to be straight again," he spoke slowly but deliberately. He gave a soft chuckle. "Kept shoving the Bible in my face. 'It's in the Bible, it's a sin!' they said. I think it would've killed them if I told them I was an atheist too."

"Ignorance is to blame," Wren said softly. She hated what she was about to do. She felt forced into it. Don't die in debt, she told herself. Wren took a deep breath and continued. "I'm not normal either."

"What?"

"I'm a sociopath," she said, her voice perfectly level. "I've killed people. And I didn't care." She stared up at the vaulted ceiling. She didn't care. When she remembered, Wren wanted to cry. She wanted to prove to herself that she had emotion, that she felt things. That she cared.

She felt a hand on her back and jumped. It was Aaron. There wasn't fear in his eyes, but acceptance. He knew what it was like to question yourself, to think that maybe everyone was right; that you're not normal. A social anomaly.

Wren smiled a small, barely intelligible smile. "And one day, I might come to accept that."