"Right..."

He turned around respectfully, taking the time to look through the pack and see if Mayako had packed something he could sleep in. He wasn't concerned about night clothes not quite fitting, so long as he had a good outfit to walk around in.

It struck him as odd that Emma would be fine with sleeping in the same bed, but then again she was an odd girl. Most girls, he figured, would object to sharing a bed with a guy much older than them.

Well, if she's fine with it, I guess that's all there is to it. It didn't bother him any, other than thinking it would be a bit cramped.

Turned around on the bed, Emma unbuttoned her coat and slid it off her shoulders. She took a short moment to check herself, to look at her underarms and shoulders and chest and tummy to make sure if she needed to do any bodily maintenance in the very near future. It was after this moment that she quickly looked behind her to see if Fenix still had his back turned. Content that he still did, she slid Eld's old shirt over her head and pushed her arms through the sleeves.

She really did swim in this thing. Emma tugged on the chest area and looked down. Actually, this shirt was probably larger now that Fenix had worn it for a bit. It seemed like it was stretched out. The shirt's collar hung down around one shoulder, perhaps making her look younger than she actually was.

Emma debated wearing her pants to bed. They were the only pants she owned, and it was probably best that she didn't wear them out just yet. She knew that she tossed and turned a lot when sleeping, too. She never used to, but since the incident, dreaming all but ceased being a pleasant experience. It was for the best, then, and since this might be the last time she slept in a bed for awhile, it was probably best that she try and maximize physical comfort. At least she had underwear. Emma pulled her slacks off and folded them up with her coat, right down by the foot of the bed. She folded her legs over one another as she turned on the bed to face Fenix again. The shirt was large enough to cover her thighs and preserve any modesty that might have been broken by one seeing her underwear--not that she cared about that much. A bra and a pair of panties was no more revealing than a two piece bikini.

"I'm decent," she said at last.

Mayako hadn't packed anything resembling night clothes, which was just as well; if he was going to be sharing a bed with Emma, it was better if he was wearing more anyway.

Silently, he turned back around. He was a little amused to see that Emma decided not to wear pants, but Eld's shirt was big enough on her that it didn't really matter.

He walked over to the bed and laid down, moving over so he was taking up roughly half of the bed, laying on his side, facing towards where Emma would be.

When Fenix was comfortable, Emma decided to get comfortable, herself. She slid under the covers and pulled them up and over her shoulders. She partly snuggled in bed, with her knees up somewhat and her hands close to her face. She faced Fenix, but didn't mind it too much.

No, Fenix wasn't a terrible person. Aggravating, but not terrible. At worst, he just didn't seem to get things. He had no tact. He probably didn't even know what the word meant. But still, he helped her out, despite how badly she hurt him--despite how willing she was to end his life, however temporary that was. Now, she technically owed him--big time. Emma wasn't one to pay back debts obsessively, though. Maybe someday, she'd bail him out of a bad place or something and call it even, but she wasn't going to worry about it. All that mattered, in any case, was that she had no genuine reason to hate this man.

The way Emma laid down, the scarred side of her face was upon the pillow, invisible to the eyes. It was dark in the room, and the shadows would have made her look truly evil.

Emma stared up at Fenix's face. It was eerie how familiar he looked--not from way back then in Galaens, but just . . . well, his face. The contours of his cheeks, the style of his hair, the color of his hair--if he were Cizokian, he'd be a replica of someone else she knew.

She said nothing at all--and the silence would persist if Fenix did not break it, however eerie the silence in staring may possibly be. At least for him . . .

Silences rarely bothered Fenix; he was accustomed to quiet, and found it comforting, and when traveling with Zach Kaiser one learned to appreciate it whenever one could get it. Part of it was the way he acted; silence simply meant no one had anything to say to him, and there was nothing wrong with that.

But while he wasn't bothered by the silence, he didn't notice her searching his face. "What is it?" he asked quietly, which made him sound a little kinder than normal, though whether it was intentional or not was up for debate.

He recognized the look Emma was giving him as one Mayako occasionally gave him as well--there was something about him that they responded to, perhaps, but what it was he didn't know.

The girl didn't speak--not initially. No, she simply continued to stare up at Fenix. Her eyelids drooped and her breathing became much more shallow. Her heartbeat was slowing to a nominal relaxation. She was tired, but for this one point in time, she couldn't allow herself to remove her eyes from Fenix's face.

Emma furrowed her brow. Something about this was off--wrong, wrong in every way. What was it? Why did she feel so . . . off . . . so suddenly?

She lifted her hand up from before her face, slowly pushing it towards Fenix's exposed cheek. For a fraction of time, she let it rest upon his cheek as if she were cupping his flesh--but then, just as soon as she rested her palm there, she lifted her hand up and gently pressed the tip of her index finger nearby the corner of his lips. She drew it down, however gently, for several millimeters--only to trail it up his jawline, just an inch, to trail her finger up, this time with a longer line. She did it again--five lines, slowly, tiredly, and harmlessly drawn down Fenix's cheek, between the corner of his lips and his ear.

The same lines that permanently marred her face.

As if guided by fatigue, her hand soon fell limp, trailing the final tally in lethargy as it slid down Fenix's jawline. She withdrew her hand from his person.

"Nothing," Emma said promptly following this unexplained oddity. She turned over, faced her back to him, and shut her eyes. "Good night."

At first he wasn't sure what Emma was doing, touching his face; he neither condemned nor encouraged the action, merely content to wait and see what she was doing. When she was about halfway done he realized she was tracing around where her own scars were.

Even Fenix didn't need to be told what was bothering her; she was a young girl, and having scars on her face was going to trouble her to no end. It was unlikely she was over how she got them, either.

"Good night," he responded. He felt vaguely like he should say something else, but he wasn't sure what that would be. Besides, she'd looked about ready to sleep, and he didn't want to keep her up.

For now, he simply shut his eyes, and soon he drifted off to sleep...

Fenix would not wake naturally. Something else would rouse him from his slumber--or someone else, rather. Someone was breathing heavily, someone close by--but that wouldn't be it. That was too soft, too mild, unnoticeable to the heavy at sleep. The waking moment would come from a much larger sound.

But not too much larger. Depth and volume was muted against grains of wood, as the knuckles rapping upon the door weren't all that strong to begin with.

If he surveyed his surroundings, he'd find that he and Emma and he were much closer than they were when they fell asleep--in so much, it would seem as if her back was right up against his chest, and that his arms were wrapped around her, holding her close, and not against her will. The girl was still sleeping, but not soundlessly; she, in her disillusioned slumber, was clinging to Fenix's arms and breathing heavy, quick breaths. There was something moist soaking into her pillow and she was tense all over.

The knocking came again, and it would seem as if a voice on the other side was calling out to the occupants of the room, but far too soft to be heard--or perhaps not. Perhaps Emma was just breathing too loudly; perhaps she was just uttering pained whimpers so close to Fenix that he wouldn't hear a voice on the other side, warning just a moment before twisting the handle that it was coming in.

Fenix awoke not from his own internal clock as per usual, but instead due to a sensation he had not felt for quite some time: someone very near him breathing heavily. It would have been amusing if it weren't for the fact that she seemed to be having a nightmare; she was breathing and sweating heavily, and clinging to his arms tightly.

So tightly, in fact, that when Fenix tried to pull away and answer whoever was knocking at the door he couldn't.

"Emma, wake up, someone's here," he whispered, though even if she woke up it was likely too late; whoever was at the door was already turning the handle, and Fenix realized that the bed wasn't the only thing wrong with the room; the lock must have been broken as well.

Emma awoke slowly, discovering herself in a cold sweat, discovering a feeling of swelling pain in her cheek, and discovering that she was wrapped in Fenix Black's arms. She hadn't the time nor opportunity to move for the door opened.

A purple head pushed through a small crack in the door.

"G-good mor--!" she was about to exclaim.

But then Mayako Takamine stopped short. With nothing more than her head popped through the partly open door, she beheld the image of Fenix Black and Emma Vaerbond, laying together in the same bed, Fenix holding Emma close, and Emma breathlessly holding onto his arms. Emma slowly opened her eyes, feeling an asthmatic hold upon her lungs. She hadn't such a disease, but the weight upon her chest was just the same. This temporarily disappeared when she recognized the purple hair of the girl poking into their room, vibrant in the morning light.

"M-- Ma . . ." Emma whispered in waking delirium.

Mayako withdrew her head from within the room almost immediately.

"A-ah! Um-- ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm s-sorry! I-I didn't mean to interrupt!" Mayako trailed off into a rushed whisper as she slammed the door behind her, "U-um-- um-- I-I'll be downstairs!"

Emma tried to sit up. In waking delirium, she couldn't tell what was real and what was not, only that her lungs felt like dead weights as they always did, every morning that she woke up in cold sweats like this. When she lifted her head, she felt her pillow sticking to her cheek. She pulled her face off of it, and a downward glance found that a dark scarlet now stained her pillow, just as well as it did her face, though only Fenix would be able to see that for now.

She must've been grinding her teeth in her sleep, irritating the wounds on the inside, and spurring a slow and steady trickle of blood from the five gashes on her face.

While Fenix was fairly certain Alphonse hadn't gotten the wrong idea, he was quite certain that Mayako did. Why she would think that, he didn't know, but her reaction could only be that of one who thought they'd walked in something intimate. He wondered what she was doing here.

Her quick departure was a shame, because Fenix soon discovered Emma had more problems than nightmares. There was blood covering her cheek and her pillow...somehow, her scars had opened up during the night.

Seeing as the pillowcase was ruined anyway, he sat up and removed it. Cupping Emma's chin in one hand to turn her to face him, with the other he gently pressed the pillowcase to her cheek in order to soak up the blood and, if she was still bleeding, stop the blood flow.

Are you alright didn't sound like the most intelligent question, so instead he asked softly, "Does it hurt?" Once Emma could focus enough to look at him, she'd see that his normally stoic features were overwritten with concern.

"A-ah--" Emma sucked in a deep breath when Fenix cupped her bleeding cheek; tensed up, shuddered, and winced with her eyes shut tight and hands squeezed into fists.

If she wasn't awake before, she was certainly awake now. Emma winced and, if Fenix was listening closely enough, he might have even heard her whimper--tensed up, subdued, and whimpering like a terrified animal conditioned not to bite back. With this injury, she was little more than that.

In Emma's experience, no one touched that side of her face without making the pain worse. It started with the initial cuts, when that monster cut tallies into and through her cheek, tearing away at the tissue and scraping the knife directly against her gums and teeth. For all intents and purposes, she should have died the same death as one who was given a Glasgow smile: arteries were cut, but Emma was saved in time.

Then surgery--that was the next time someone touched that side of her face. She was awake and without even the smallest of sedatives, the Tsukimonos rushed to essentially burn the severed arteries to stop her from bleeding out (permanently; the nature of the wound required the severed arteries to simply be burnt and rendered forever useless) and stitch up her face to the very best ability, whilst she squirmed and kicked and thrashed and cried. Then there was dental surgery. Due to the nature of the mouth and the difficulty sedating such sensitive tissue without outright poisoning the patient, liquor was the best available sedative--but even that couldn't dull pains like Emma had to deal with. Cutting and sewing her gums, extracting permanently damaged teeth, and destroying the then useless nerve endings that would have otherwise been a perpetual source of pain if left untouched.

The series of events were the most traumatic of her life.

The last time, it was Mayako beating her with a wooden sword, breaking her cheekbone under her eye and adding another scar and pain to her face.

No-- no one touched her face without making it worse, and there was never a thing she could do about it. Someone could physically assault her, beat her to a pulp, and she'd fight back to the very best of her ability, but to grab that side of her face with authority . . . Emma would stop. She'd stop fighting, she'd tense up, she'd remember all those pains, and perhaps become so desperate that she might beg for the person to let go.

When Fenix held onto her face, she expected the worst: having beaten him to a pulp the other day, having kicked him over and lectured him on the way to Galaens, shouting at him and showing him nothing but contempt throughout the day--she expected that he might be grabbing her face, squeezing her cheek, and maybe digging his fingers into the tally gaps on her cheek. She expected him to tear open the scar tissue, force her to bleed out even more, and dig his fingers in to scrape his nails across her gums and teeth and tear it all open all over again. The thoughts strung together and she nearly curled in on herself, whimpered, and begged Fenix to leave her be.

But that's not what happened. She whimpered--however meek and small--and was ready to plead with Fenix, but no damage was done. There was pressure, but it was light, and soon there was a sheet upon her face, gently so, wiping down her cheek, soaking up the blood and wiping away the excess. Slowly but surely, she loosened her muscles and ceased her quiet whimpering. Eventually, she opened her eyes and let out a trembling breath.

For several seconds, Emma said nothing at all. She simply took in deep breaths and openly winced as Fenix cleaned her cheek--but still, she allowed him to do it. She didn't stop him from helping, perhaps even invited it without knowing. She didn't know. She was stiff as a board at first, but throughout the course of it, she softened up and--perhaps without realizing it--leaned into him.

". . . it always does," she replied, her voice quiet, defeated.

She went quiet for a moment, not saying a word, just breathing as Fenix wiped the blood away. The wounds kept bleeding, but slowly and slightly. They'd close soon, but the blood needed to be soaked up as it came. Emma leaned into Fenix a little more, still without realizing it.

"It's like . . . a burn-- in my skin and my teeth," although she didn't touch either the wound or Fenix's hand, she did lift a still--subtly--trembling finger to motion towards the afflicted side of her face, indicating the region between the corner of her lips and her ear, "It feels like my skin's rotting and my teeth are full of cavities and breaking apart. And now my eye . . ."

Emma wasn't sure if that one was going to last or not. She took off the bandages shortly before she packed up to leave Hillcrest, leaving the image of a swollen black and blue bag under her eye. It felt swollen; it felt painful, but it blended with the rest of the pains on the side of her face, almost like they were meant to exist with one another. She was somewhat worried that this pain would feel permanent like the others.

She wasn't exaggerating about that, though. The pain she described may have sounded like hyperbole, but it was the truth and it was a constant. Irritated and bleeding or calm and healing, the pain was all the same. There was no feasible way for her to forget what she had and what was done to her; a burning pain in her face, where she felt as if, living though she may be, she was rotting on that one side of her face.

Fenix nodded solemnly, as though he understood what she meant. "...And it feels like it's growing, getting worse; like soon it will be all that's left," he said quietly. There was a moment where paused and looked down, remembering something, before he examined her face further.

"Your eye will heal, though," he noted. It seemed mostly like a large bruise, and while it would no doubt hurt until it did, it would fade away eventually. Even the scars on her cheek would eventually stop reopening, though they'd never fade entirely.

With the way she talked, it was easy to forget that Emma was only twelve; it was only times like this that he could see her for what she really was, as opposed to what she tried to present herself as. Even if she put on a brave and occasionally rough front, she was still a child, and was frightened and deeply hurt by what happened to her.

After what must have seemed like an eternity to Emma but wasn't very long at all to Fenix, he announced, "Looks like the bleeding's stopped."

Truth be told, it didn't actually feel like the whole experience lasted forever. It was weird . . . as soon as she realized that Fenix wasn't going to hurt her, she relaxed, and slowly but surely she stopped shaking entirely. Eventually, Fenix had stopped wiping the blood away, and Emma was still leaning back--sitting up, but leaning back into his chest.

"Maybe it will someday," replied Emma, her voice sullen.

The feeling would take over someday? Her eye would heal someday? The bleeding would truly stop someday? Perhaps she was talking about one individual factor, or perhaps her thoughts were on all three, she didn't know. Optimistic, pessimistic, or neutral--it was too early for her to decide.

Perhaps it was time to drop it . . .

Inevitably, Emma reached up to gently tug on the pillowcase that Fenix used as a cleaning cloth. Emma drew it from him lightly and held it up, beholding the bloody mess she'd made on this thing. She looked down to the pillow then, only to find a less bloody mess, but some blood nonetheless.

No doubt they were going to want this pillow replaced.

Emma leaned forward, pulling herself away from Fenix--though she still was unaware that she was ever leaning into him to begin with, even when she was practically leaning the back of her head into his chest--and slowly removing herself from the bed. She dabbed her hand upon her cheek, and upon discerning that she really wasn't bleeding anymore, she decided that it was about time that she went to go see why Mayako was here.

"I'll pay for this," Emma stated as she gathered both the pillow and the pillowcase. She hadn't a clue how much it would cost her, but she was pretty sure she had it.

Fenix just nodded; he'd intended to pay for it, but as long as she offered, there was no reason to argue. They were pretty basic pillows, so they weren't going to cost very much.

Someday. He wondered if time truly held all the answers. Sometimes it seemed like it had hardly done anything but make him grow taller...

"We should see what Mayako wants," he said, unknowingly echoing Emma's thoughts. He was slightly worried that if Mayako was here, it meant the villagers were already in town looking for him, but that didn't seem likely. Perhaps she had something more to say to Emma?