Penny in the Well (Peregrine x Igraine)

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The building was fifteen stories of old brick, plywood, and glass, constructed back in the mid 1900's and in desperate need of repair. Many of the windows weren't even properly boarded up, but were rather covered in large pieces of canvas, which fluttered in the wind, but were too large to be pulled out the window by a passing breeze. Sometimes the wind would tear them out, though, and the person in the room would have to yank it back inside before the sound of the tarp fluttering turned everyone in the building against them. Many of them were ripped up billboards, scavenged in the middle of the night when no one would notice the vandalism. The building manager was too lazy to bother with repairing anything, and he got enough desperate people willing to dish out some money for the small apartments that he made a small profit. That was all the landlord cared about, so this was all those kinds of people got.

Ethan was ashamed to say that he was one of these desperate people. He had been here just under two weeks, eking out a quiet existence in southern Chicago while he waited for his situation to finish cooling down. It had been three months since his daring escape from the Seattle jail, and he was starting to think that he had won. There hadn't even been a close encounter during that time, nothing to give even so much as a hint of his location to that female FBI agent. This was not enough time to completely throw her off, one tip-off would set him back to square one, but he was starting to get a little more confident.

Ethan had spent a couple of days in Seattle after his escape, trusting to his obsessive attention to the numbers to keep him safe. From there he had taken a mostly empty bus down to Olympia, and then to Portland. He hadn't stayed in any city for longer than a week, only long enough to gather the funds for his next expedition, and make sure that the FBI had no lead on his whereabouts.

It was easy enough for him to get enough money to survive in a city like this, especially when he no longer thought much about the legality of his actions. Chicago rang with a massive underground market for just about anything, and with the right luck it was remarkably easy to exploit. Normally he would have moved on again by now, but he was starting to feel somewhat safe in this city. He couldn't help but feel that its dark spaces and narrow streets were there to welcome him. And even if by some miracle the FBI did manage to find him again there was no worry about him being able to disappear in a city like this. He could escape a single chaser the first time he rounded a corner, and even a series of pursuers within a few minutes. However, out of a small measure of caution, he stuck to leaving the apartments only during the night, when the shadows and a baggy hoodie made him unidentifiable.

The apartments were managed by a man who controlled all the profit, but it was run by a group of managers who kept an eye on the place 24/7. It hadn't taken Ethan very long to figure out why a run-down place like this needed someone watching over it constantly. The man who owned it had devoted almost an entire floor, hidden behind several locked doors, to a meth lab, and the product that flowed out on a nightly basis was more than enough to make up for a series of guards. It was well disguised so even if the police came by, responding to some basic 911 call, they would never find it. It would take a thorough search of the building to find the lab. A new night manager had been hired three days ago, a squint-eyed man who watched everyone who entered and left the building during his shift. He had given Ethan a very thorough once-over the first time Ethan had tried to leave, but after he had reassured the man with a fifty dollar bill that, yes, he really did belong here, they had gotten on well enough. That didn't stop him from eying Ethan up every time he walked down the stairs or back in from the street, but as soon as he recognized Ethan he always let him by with a wave of the hand.

He seemed to be particularly paranoid this evening, because when Ethan walked in he saw the man visibly flinch, before turning boldly towards the door. Ethan tipped back his hood, ran a hand through his messed-up hair, and offered the guard a weary smile. The fact that the manager refused to meet his eyes gave Ethan pause, and he stopped long enough to quickly scan the numbers. The FBI agent was still far away, and the night manager had recognized him. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Ethan tipped his hood back up and walked towards the old stairs at the back of the room. His apartment was on the ninth floor, and with the elevator out of order it always proved to be a long and tedious climb. However, since his encounter with the agent in Port Townsend, Ethan had been forcing himself to go for runs every evening, and his endurance had grown quite a bit. Therefore, he was hardly out of breath after briskly climbing his way up all nine levels. He used an old key to unlock his door, and stepped into the apartment before closing the door behind him with a weary sigh. Ethan was not a messy person by nature, but there was nothing he could do to make this apartment "clean". Compared to some of the places he had stayed, back when he had been dancing from casino to casino and rubbing elbows with some of the wealthiest gamblers in America, this place was hell. Compared to some of the places he had stayed in the last three months, it was more than acceptable. It would have been funny how quickly his standards of living could change, if his situation wasn't so serious.

In the apartment above his, the shouting was beginning again. The couple had moved in after Ethan, and as he listened to the shouts slowly change to screams he felt his hands clench into fists. He did relax a bit when he saw that someone in the building was calling 9-1-1. As little as he wanted the cops showing up in his apartment, they would deal with whatever was going on, and had absolutely no reason to bother him. He fell onto his bed still fully dressed, pulling the numbers forcefully to make sure that the bugs that were the unofficial tenants of the apartments stayed out of his room, and allowed his eyes to begin to close.


"911, what is your emergency?"

"Yes. I saw a poster for that man that the FBI is looking for. I think he lives in the apartment building I work for."

"Which man?"

"The man who broke out of that police facility in Seattle. Black hair, green eyes?"

"And what is the apartment's address?"

"Umm... 7947 S South Chicago Avenue. South Chicago."

"And what is your name, sir?"

"I'm Robert Milton, I'm the night manager at the apartment."

"Thank you very much, Mr. Milton. Someone will come to investigate soon."

"Hey, he always leaves in the middle of the night, and sleeps through the day."

"Thank you, sir."

"What about the reward?"

"Excuse me?"

"The thousand. The 'reward for information leading to the capture of'."

"That will be handled once your claim has been investigated, and the man arrested. Thank you for your time, sir."
 
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The phone buzzed insistently on the nightstand farthest from her reach. Even silenced, that familiar bzzzzzzzt still bored through her sleep like a dentist's drill, yanking Bree from the deepest, fullest sleep she'd known in months with a frustrated rush of a sigh. She might have shoved an accidental elbow into Jarod's belly when she crawled over him, if the small 'oof' in the moonlit darkness was anything to gauge by. But his soft, low laugh was soothing to her ears, and Bree felt herself embraced and then lifted over his body, to the side of the bed nearer the phone.

She fumbled for the phone, swiped quickly when she saw the number, and the time: 3:17 am. Fuck. This wasn't going to be anything good, she knew, and Bree cursed the hell out of the timing - inside though, of course.

Because on the outside she was trying not to giggle like a little girl when Jarod nibbled at her neck, his hands deliberately, playfully distracting even while simultaneously trying to sound both awake and remotely professional. "Yeah... Agent Walsh... "

Turns out Lindsey's blind date 'outreach effort' wasn't nearly so cringe-worthy as she'd feared. Not even close actually. Jerod wasn't just 'in the Navy' - he was a former Navy SEAL who'd found a quieter life on the outside, a bank executive now. Sure, he was nearly a decade older than Bree, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing really. Old enough to know what he was doing, without a doubt, but not so young he thought he had to flee before morning light.

And as an extra bonus, Riddick was yet to shred a single item of his clothing yet.

"Right... Yes, that one's mine... "

Bree clutched Jarod's wrist beneath the blankets, sitting straight up in bed, lengths of auburn hair almost as wild as the sudden look in her eyes.

"Are you sure?" she hissed softly, incredulous.

"Yeah, yeah I'll be there... 'bout half an hour. Schedule the next available flight... Right, for Chicago - send the info to my phone, this number... "

Bree slipped out from under the blankets, flipping on the lamp with an apologetic glance and a shrug of her shoulders to Jarod. For his part, the man simply stretched and smiled, sitting up in Bree's bed with a grin as he watched her dash to her closet.

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All in all, Jarod had been a good sport about the whole 'time for you to go' thing - and she had been up front about the job after all. Bree wasn't sure she'd see him again when she got back - though she hoped. But he'd been good to her, just what she'd needed when she needed it most, and the preternatural calm that hung about her now said every bit as much. And as those grey eyes peered up from beneath the hood of her sweatshirt to a window on the 9th floor of this piece of shit dilapidated building, she let loose a long, slow sigh, the only obvious sign of her agitation.

'Hello Ethan... Missed me?'

Two days of surveillance had confirmed the 'night manager's' story - and yes, that was a title she used VERY loosely. Forty-eight hours might not sound very long, but she honestly didn't believe they could risk too much longer. For whatever reason, the green-eyed man really did seem to have a routine of sorts, though she didn't trust the surveillance to follow him wherever he went to during the nights, but there was a plain clothes cop who made sure it really was him, returning in the early morning hours, emerging at night like some kind of damned vampire.

And the minute the ink was dry on the arrest warrant, Bree had her team assembled.

While not necessarily a police 'no go zone,' wisdom dictated a definitely understated approach in this section of Chicago. This would be nothing like the raid on the Richmond casino, with absolutely no indication outside of a law enforcement presence. The building itself had to be the biggest damn fire trap she'd ever seen in her life, and it made Bree sick knowing there were probably kids living somewhere in its confines, but for her purposes? The elevators didn't work, the only way up or down those fifteen floors being the stairwells - exactly where a pair of plain-clothes SWAT members would be waiting. There was no way for Ethan to slip past them, unless he was feeling particularly suicidal on those precariously rickety fire escapes - or just sprouted wings.

Bree raced up the stairs silently, only just pulling the velcro slips over her hoodie to show the bright yellow words 'FBI' when she and her pair of Chicago SWAT partners emerged in the dim, filthy hallway of the ninth floor. Pistols drawn, the sounds of their booted feet were muffled by the layer of filthy, tattered carpet in the hallway. With a nod of her head, the grim-faced man positioned himself in front of the door and, in a single, powerful and well-practiced move, kicked in the flimsy apartment door right off its hinges.
 
As soon as the FBI hit two floors below him, the numbers decided it was important for him to realize. He bolted up in bed, eyes going wide, before squinting against the bright light that was streaming in through his "window". This had been the first time that he had been able to sleep deeply since entering the run-down apartment, and he cursed the agent for not giving him at least until that night. It took him a moment to recognize that he wasn't even surprised to realize that she had found him. Perhaps it was the little clues, the things he really shouldn't have ignored, but had anyways.

The night manager was the first big clue. He had been acting different ever since that one night where someone had called 911 and no police had shown up. That must have been the tip-off. The homeless man huddled in one of the little culverts on the outside of the building should have been the second clue. Ethan had reached a point where anyone staring at him brought a touch of suspicion, but the stare had been so abstract that he had been willing to dismiss it, even when he realized that the man was not truly homeless, but an undercover cop. He had let himself assume that the cops had finally gotten a tip-off about the meth-lab and were preparing to close in. He had even dismissed the arrival of a couple stealth cop cars, tacking it to the meth lab.

She certainly had come in understated, or he never would have missed her presence. Now he only had a few moments to prepare, to find a way out. There was only one set of stairs in the building, and she would certainly have the lower levels blocked off. That left only one direction for him to go, up. All he had to do was find a way down once he went up, a way down that the FBI woman couldn't follow him.

He got out of bed quickly, pulling on a hoody and shoes so that he wouldn't stand out in the middle of the street when he did find a way to get away. And he was certain that he would find a way, one way or another. They couldn't hold him, even if they did get him now. It was impossible. He would only need the tiniest mistake to work off of, and he would be gone.

Ethan scanned the number feverishly, trying to find the best way out. He grabbed a dilapidated nightstand and dragged it over behind the door, picked up a pillow and the blankets and set them in front of the nightstand, before unlocking the door and standing on top of the nightstand. When the SWAT man kicked the door open there was little resistance to the movement. The man stumbled forward and the door bounced violently off of Ethan's nightstand, swinging forward and clubbing the man in the head with the doorknob. Even as the SWAT man was falling to the ground with a bloody lump on his forehead Ethan was leaping over him, desperately relying on the ninety five percent chance that no one would shoot at him, and the eighty four percent chance that, if they did, the bullet would not hit him.

All of those nights of running paid off, and Ethan took off like an Olympic sprinter. He knew they were chasing him, and knew that he would need to find some way to get rid of, at the very least, both of their guns. He pounded his way up through the stories, taking steps two at a time. On the thirteenth floor, he found one of his outs. He sprinted past the reinforced door to the meth lab, the two police hot on his heels. The woman made it past the door, but as the SWAT man was trying to pass it swung open suddenly. The guard posted inside had heard the commotion, and decided to come take a look. "Police," he bellowed at the top of his lungs, before diving forwards at the SWAT man, sending his gun spiraling down the stairs to clatter to a halt one level down. The man would probably be fine, but there was no way he was coming after Ethan now.

It was just him and the strange woman who seemed inexplicably bound to him. Just as it always was.

In one last, quick burst of speed, Ethan hurtled his way out onto the rooftop. He was breathing heavily but deeply, and he didn't slow as he hurtled toward the edge of the building. In one smooth movement, he jumped on top of the concrete barrier intended to keep people from accidentally falling off the roof. But there would be no accidents today.

As soon as the wind hit his face, Ethan found his way out. It was simple, elegant, and damn near suicidal. But he was probably the only person in the world who could pull it off. The problem was he would need time to get things set up. Time that he no longer had. Ethan stood carefully on the wall, keeping the numbers forward in his mind. He raised up on the balls of his toes, and teetered precariously on the edge. He wasn't falling, not unless he wanted to, but the FBI agent wouldn't know that.

He knew how to stall her, too. He could almost see it written on her face. She didn't want him to die. She wanted to escort him downstairs in handcuffs, not letting him out of her sight until she finally got a chance to ask him all those questions that burned inside of her. But it wouldn't take much to get her to spill them now.

"Very good," he congratulated her warmly, his arms spread wide and the wind teasing the hair on his forehead. "You finally caught up with me. But I think you know that I'm not going to go quietly."
 
"Yeah, you're a runner. I get it Ethan," Bree said softly, her calm, soothing voice barely rising above the wind that danced along the rooftop. "That is your name isn't it? Ethan?" So very slowly, she lowered the muzzle of her Glock, not holstering it with both her partners still cut off in the chase.

"But you're run out of road here, and... Well, you know you won't be getting off this roof through me." He didn't strike her as the suicidal type - far from it actually, with his breezy bravado, the warmth in his voice. Nothing in his demanor spelled 'desperation' to Bree, but best to play things safe, make no assumptions about this strange man who'd haunted her nightmares for months with his dead buddy Victor.

"It doesn't have to be hard, you know. Come with me now, and I guarantee you'll be treated fairly. Don't go quietly at all. It'd be nice if you didn't actually - you know very well I want to talk with you. Heh. I don't think I've wanted anything more since the first day we met."

'But for a full night's sleep.' She didn't say the words out loud of course, but the thought made her smile, however grim and hard the gesture seemed.
 
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She had the calm, reasoning voice down to pat, he had to give her that. At the moment, he was perfectly willing to let her talk, let her ramble on as long as she pleased, as long as she didn't try and come close to him. The last thing he wanted to do right now was rush his plans. The numbers always responded better when changes were gradual.

The wind had already begun to pick up a bit. Ethan could feel it pulling at the hem of his pants, and hear one of the tarps over one of the windows fluttering on the level below. He needed time, and, despite the differences in situation, his mind flashed back to his many conversations with Kevin and Josie back in Port Townsend. They had always wanted to know all about him, but it had been remarkably easy to get them talking about themselves instead. People always wanted to talk about themselves, whether they realized it or not. Perhaps applying the same tactic on a certain FBI agent. Whose name he still did not know. It seemed important somehow, and a thought struck him, unexpected and quite welcome. She could only have one name she went by, and the chance of that being her name, whatever it was, had to be certain.

He swayed uneasily on his feet as numbers and names flooded through his mind. Had he been anyone but himself, the sudden lack of concentration would have sent him falling to his death. Of course, had he been anyone but himself, the situation would have never come to be in the first place.

Luckily, her name was relatively common, and it didn't take him very long to find it. The additional numbers slowly faded away, and he was left with only one certainty. Her name, perhaps not her given name, but the name she gave herself, was Bree. His smile was surprised and honest, although the hand he placed on his sweaty forehead hid some of the delight in his expression.

"That is actually an excellent question, Bree," he replied conversationally, tottering warily on the edge just in case she got any ideas of trying to grab him. "What did I do to make you so desperate to speak to me?"
 
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Bree blinked, a strange, sudden panic in her gut when she realized the green-eyed man knew her name - and not really her name, but the nickname only her little remnant of family, her few friends and closest work colleagues knew her by. But the blink was all the reaction he'd get from the instantly wary woman, her grey eyes narrowing with sudden suspicion.

"How does killing a man strike you as an FBI conversation starter, Ethan?" she snapped, the edge in her voice a little sharper and harder than she intended. But once the words were in the wind between them, it wasn't as if she could simply snatch them back. Bree knew full well what he was asking of course - what had he done to earn her attention from the very first? Why in the world would she take note of a simple waiter named Walter, and she honestly didn't have any answer that made the least bit of sense. A hunch? A touch of intuition? A 'gut feeling' about the guy who was too calm, too patient, and serene as the eye of the storm enveloping everyone around him but him?

Yeah, she'd probably chew a little broken glass before letting those words out of her mouth, though even she could hear the unintended stridency creeping into her speech. Bree really couldn't help it, her mouth gone dry with the fear, heart pounding faster and faster in her chest.

She hated heights. Oh God how she hated heights, and the way Ethan swayed there on the edge turned her knees to icy liquid. Bree wanted nothing more than to snatch the green-eyed man from the edge, his precarious perch racheting up her anxiety several notches and breeding doubt about her original assessment of his suicidal tendencies.

Bree edged slowly toward the green-eyed man, one hand moving from the gun's grip and held out to him, palm up. "Come away from the edge there Ethan. Really, we can talk... I'm... I'm sure you have your reasons, and it was wrong of me to judge before you'd had your say. Really. Please."
 
"Killing a man?" Ethan replied, feigning surprise and indignation even as his gut twisted inside of him. "What did I do?" But he couldn't outright deny it. Not even to her. Somehow, hearing her direct accusation brought him right back to the ferry ride to Seattle, to all the confusion and the guilt. Back to the moments when he had still believed that he was a good man. He had forgotten that darkness inside of him, even as he wandered about in the darkness of Chicago. He had been silent and distant from everyone and everything around him, and somehow that had sealed himself away.

Perhaps he should step down off the wall, admit to everything. What could they really do to him? It wasn't as though there was any evidence tying him to Victor's death, and even if he pleaded guilty, what jury in their right mind would convict him? And even if they did, even if they sent him to a maximum security prison, how long would it be before he got tired, or scared, or bored, and walked out of it just as he had walked out of the police station in Seattle? If he did that, he would never be able to live in America again. And this was his home, the whole messed up country in one lovely bundle.

No, his only option was escape, to just keep running until they decided they were done with him. For how long could they chase him?

"Are you worried about me, Bree," he said mockingly, his head tilting to the side, green eyes narrowing. "Are you worried about a murderer?" Was it really indignation that colored his voice such a dark shade, that caused him to dance around on the edge of the wall like some tightrope walker? Or was it that darkness inside of him, that belief that he was better, that he was infallible, and that the power he held gave him the right to torment other people, to play with their lives. To end their lives. He glared at her, eyes spitting fire. Before she had arrived he was nothing but a normal man, a man with too much luck, perhaps, but certainly not the dark monster for which he now saw himself. But the glare, even though it was directed at Bree, was far more cruel to his own heart than it could ever be to hers.

He just wanted to go, wanted to get away from this person who drove him to such extremes. He couldn't blame her, he had made his choices, and there was no going back on them now. But he wanted her to vanish. Vanish, and never come back. And all he needed was another minute or two. Another minute to make sure that all the details would come together without fail.
 
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"Stop it Ethan," Bree shot back, edging a little closer still, her hand still outstretched to the green-eyed man dancing on a ledge. "If that's all you were, just a murderer, I should shoot you off this ledge right now and be done with it - and save the federal courts a few million dollars in legal fees to boot."

She didn't so much as flinch as his eyes bored into her, a vile mix of anger and loathing - though she somehow suspected not all, nor even most, of his hatred was truly directed toward her.

"I get it, I do. I'm not some negotiator with the all the right, comforting words to give you the warm fuzzies, so we'll be holding hands and humming kumbayah off into the sunset after a warm hug, hot chocolate and handcuffs. I don't know who you are Ethan. I don't know what you are. But I know I could be wrong. I've been wrong before, about a lot of things."

"Show me where I got it wrong, Ethan. Please. Talk to me... " And the plea in those last three words might have come through just a little too truthfully, a little too plaintive, coming as they did from the exhausted woman beneath the hard armor of the agent. But Bree was beginning to fear, inexplicably, that time was getting as short and precious as a few moments of restful sleep.
 
He laughed at her final words, a harsh, cruel barking laugh that contained more pain than actual humor. He could not figure out what she expected from him. Or, perhaps more importantly, he couldn't figure out what he expected from her. He could see in her eyes that she wasn't going to let him go until she finally caught him, and yet he still planned to run. At the moment, it seemed like the only option. Whether or not it was an "only option" like Victor had been an "only option" remained to be seen. The numbers were coming together, there were only a few more seconds left. The wind was fast, whipping him from side to side, and only the numbers held him in place.

"You are quite right, Bree." he replied, his voice so quiet that it would almost be lost in the wind. "You've got it all wrong." The tarp below him was flapping wildly as the wind eddied around the building. One last sharp gust pulled it out of the window, and sent one end of it flying out into empty air. It whirled around like a giant white flag, before another gust of wind pushed it up towards the roof. "But I won't be the one explaining it to you."

He smiled blissfully, and gave one final shove to the numbers. And then everything was in place. His body tipped back fluidly, arching like a high-jumper hurtling over the pole. His feet slipped off the edge and he let out an exultant whoop as the air rushed around him. He snagged the corner of the tarp fluttering below him, and the force of his fall ripped it completely out from where it was attached to the wall. The small piece of drywall that came with it fell much faster than the impromptu parachute, and Ethan twisted wildly in mid fall, snagging the other corner. For one moment before the plastic opened up, it looked like two wings spread out behind his back.

A sudden gust of wind came up from below, billowing the thin, watertight plastic out in the air. Ethan slowed violently, and he couldn't help the small groan that slipped from between his lips as one of his shoulders dislocated. Just because he had been expecting it didn't make the pain any less. He glided for barely half a second, before releasing the tarp just about a story above the ground and falling towards earth. He rolled out on the concrete sidewalk, letting out a scream as his shoulder was popped back into place by the roll.

Ethan had no talent for parkour, but even someone who had never practiced free running had the chance, by pure, dumb luck, to get an almost perfect roll. The concrete scraped against the palms of his hands, ripping skin, and his hoodie ripped when a thread got caught on a particularly rough patch of ground, but all things considered he was remarkably intact. He was far more intact, in fact, than he had any right to be.

This time, he didn't bother with any sort of theatrics towards the certainly dumbfounded agent who must surely be watching him from fifteen stories up. His fall had been theatrics enough. Perhaps even too much theatrics. Instead, he gathered his feet under him, stood, and hobbled away as quickly as he could. His stride loosened up as he moved, and pretty soon he was rolling through the streets at a decent clip. It was time to get out of this city, time to get away from all the things that were waiting for him in it. A part of him longed to return to the sweet, simple life of Port Townsend, where he could go where he would and do what he pleased, but he shook away the thought of such a simple, good life the way he might try and shake away a fly. It was not something of which he had any right to dream.

He didn't look back as he ran, didn't bother to check what Bree might be doing. They weren't going to catch up to him again in this city. Somewhere nearby there was a person who hadn't been completely hardened by this part of town yet, a person who also wouldn't recognize him. That person would take him somewhere, somewhere far away from here, where he might get a chance to start again, at least until Bree showed up and drove him to run once more.
 
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"NO!"

That single word shocked from her lips as Ethan fell... He just fell backward, arms outstretched like a dark angel, as if the winds of the Windy City would simply bear him up.

But they didn't, and he fell through the air with something very like a shout of joy. Instantly nauseous, Bree still ran to the ledge where he stood, nothing but cold, numb shock running through her now as she peered over the edge. Too numb with horror even to feel the natural twisting in her gut that would have come from the sight, fifteen stories up, over the ledge.

He should have been a bloody Rorschach's blot on the cement below, twisted all unnaturally, broken and still - and silent. No more questions - certainly no answers...

For several long moments, Bree simply couldn't grasp... No, there was just no comprehension of what she was seeing, any more than if a window to heaven or hell had suddenly been lifted before her eyes. This wasn't something possible, something merely human eyes were meant to see, a thing beyond the artist's brush or the novelist's words.

Because a man had just fallen from a 15-story ledge and, as if he had known where all the precarious handholds would be? He'd been carried - however painfully - to the cement below.

Ethan wasn't crushed or broken, even if the landing looked far from light. He stood up.

Then? Then he simply... He... He ran away.

Her fingers ran incredulously over her eyes once, twice - and then the green-eyed man simply disappeared into the shadows of Chicago. Bree turned away, stunned, gaping in horror and shock, and she slid down the wall of the ledge, all the strength she ever had in her legs and body seeping into the tar of the roof. The gun slipped from her fingers as she wrapped her arms around her legs, drawing them to her chest, her forehead falling to her knees.

The tears slid down her cheeks silently, her grey eyes wide with shock and seeing nothing at all. No one would ever believe her, she knew. Bree didn't even believe what she'd just witnessed.

And she was tired. Oh God... God, she was just so... Tired. But that small, relentless voice was already chiming in the back of her head. She had no right to fall apart now, no right to shed these useless tears... Not here. Not now.

Bree's shaking hand reached for her Glock and, finding its grip, shaking fingers holstered it once more as, by sheer force of will, she somehow found her feet again and gracelessly stumbled toward the men she'd left some stories below.
 
It was almost a surprise to Ethan the kind of man who stopped on the side of the road to pick him up as he stumbled his way slowly towards the outskirts of Chicago. He was gruff and silent, pulling over and throwing the door open for him with hardly a glance in his direction. If he hadn't known full well that this man would never hurt him, Ethan might never have gotten into the car. It was a small, neat, two-door Honda with comfortable seats, a small crack in the window that looked like a songbird, and a mess of stuff in the back. The man did not speak to him at all, other than to ask how far he was going. Once he had been informed that Ethan needed to go as far west as possible, he turned up the music, a wide collection of classic rock, and devoted himself to driving. He hardly looked over at Ethan for the rest of the drive.

Ethan's decision to go west again had happened more by instinct than from any real logic. He was running away again, and somehow Bree had changed from a person to a whole organization, looming from the east. His only thought was to get away, and somehow the peace of the northwest, the trees and mountains and general lack of hordes of people, felt more safe. He certainly wasn't going to travel towards Virginia, that place where this whole nightmare had begun. He didn't even want to pass through Virginia, which automatically ruled out almost all of the northeast. The fact that his silent chauffeur was heading towards a town in Oregon sealed his decision.

They had a rather strange arrangement, this quiet man who Ethan eventually got the name Matt out of, and himself. Despite his attitude, Matt was a surprisingly sympathetic and gentle man. He spent the two nights they were on the road in different hotels, and since each of them had a double bed he gave Ethan a place to sleep. Ethan did his best to help out by paying for gas with the small roll of bills he had found shoved into the pocket of his hoodie. He had to break the hundreds carefully, when Matt wasn't looking, as he didn't really want the man wondering from where Ethan got the cash. But Matt hadn't really expected the help from his unexpected traveling buddy, and he didn't question Ethan at all. After a wary first night in which neither man slept particularly well, the silence between them started to become almost companionable. Neither knew anything about the other except for a first name, and the fact that they both had an appreciation for Stairway to Heaven. Driving through the middle of the Nebraskan fields the song came up in shuffle. Ethan started out only humming, but when he heard Matt's husky voice he couldn't help but throw in his own accompaniment. Their voices mixed fairly well, considering neither of them could really hold a tune. But it cracked the last of the ice between them, and they started to trade a few words with comfort.

Matt dumped him with no ceremony on the outskirts of Bend, OR. He pulled the car over as soon as the houses started to rise about them, and turned to look at Ethan. He had been expecting the dismissal for over ten minutes, and he opened the door without any prompting. He offered Matt a brief smile, which the large man returned hesitantly a moment later. And that was it. Ethan closed the door and Matt drove away.
 
Bree closed her eyes as she turned her face up toward the sky. The sun wasn't warm, nor even particularly bright this time of year. But it was one of those rare, cloudless skies one finds on occasion in the Pacific Northwest, that simply must be savored because they are gone far, far too soon. She hadn't really looked forward to returning to the area, to this part of the country. There were some moments in time she still couldn't exorcise from her thoughts, the scenes playing in her mind's eye: a man stepping from a 15-story roof top and walking away; an impossible leap from pier to ship, aided it seemed by the ocean itself; a leisurely stroll from a jail cell...


She shook her head angrily, wincing as if in pain for a moment as she pulled her knees to her chest. Wrapping her arms protectively around her legs, Bree's forehead dropped to her knees for a moment, catching her breath, forcing it to slow, and then slower still and deeper, deliberately calming the pounding of her heart in her chest.


It wasn't that nobody believed her. In the absence of any other explanation for Ethan's inexplicable escape from the Seattle PD and now just walking off the roof a Chicago high-rise, there was no other explanation to be had. But that explanation meant that something deeply, profoundly impossible had traipsed through the world, and Bree's logical, orderly, disciplined mind fought that knowledge with every ounce of her indomitable willpower.


And she was falling apart. The disintegration was slow, granted, but Bree could feel it sapping at the edges of her strength, the constant pull of that impossible thing, as unstoppable and undeniable as the relentless force of the tides on the seashore, wearing it all away.


So when Jarod - kind, concerned, unfailingly decent Jarod - suggested he take her home, to his home, to come explore the wilds with him and his brothers, do some rafting, some hiking? Oh sure, there'd been a split-second of genuine terror, that things were going way too fast, that no way should she be meeting his family after only some weeks time.


It was mostly a measure of how worn she'd become, how tired and stretched paper-thin she'd become, that she was here now, that Bree was willing to allow someone else to help carry her burdens in some small way. Not that she'd admit this thing though. Not aloud at least. Not ever.


But here at this rocky riverbank, Bree could almost let the water's roar drown out all those thoughts that shouldn't be, and simply... Not think. She'd left Jarod and his brothers, Josh and Matt about a mile upstream, getting everything ready for their ride today. 'Quiet Matt' she'd taken to calling him in her head, his silence at first a little... Disquieting, she supposed, especially compared to Jarod and Josh - but then something just clicked in her head... Well, it was simply him after all, and he meant no harm, just had his own peculiar ways of doing things (like that whole "no airplanes" thing, driving all the way from Ohio to Bend, Oregon).


Jarod took his cue from Matt it seemed, and didn't question Bree when she said she wanted to go check out the river, only nodded, smiled, said they'd be ready in a couple hours and gave her a quick kiss good-bye as she promised to be back soon, soon enough...
 
From Ethan's perspective, Bend, Oregon felt like a quaint town longing to pretend that it was a quaint metropolis. There was no doubt that he would be able to find everything he needed to survive in a place like this, but the city alternated between housing districts that were lower end, and the really rich who built monstrous homes on tiny lots. Downtown Bend followed the major highway that ran through the city, but less than four blocks from that highway the tall buildings and commercial shops were replaced by treed parks, and homes on large green lots.

Ethan spent his first night in a park, settling himself under a large, leafy tree, falling asleep to the sound of the river. The only reason he dared such a thing was because he was one of the only people in town who knew for a fact that it was not going to rain that night, despite what the low-hanging grey clouds might say to the contrary. As he fell asleep, Ethan toyed with the idea of becoming a meteorologist with some amusement, imagining the kind of reputation he could build for being able to predict the weather with such accuracy. They did, after all, deal in probability. However, the joy of the meaningless idea was instantly squashed when he realized that he would have to go on television to do such a thing, and that would doubtless alert Bree to his location. It wasn't so much the fact that he couldn't become a meteorologist that bothered him, the idea had been pure fancy anyways, it was the fact that the fear of this FBI agent, and it was indeed fear by now, for she kept turning up at the most unlikely moments, that fear kept him from doing things. Ethan was a free spirit, and being caged by something as severe as fear nearly broke his heart. He let out a miserable sigh before rolling over, tucking his head in close to his chest and drifting off to sleep.

He settled into Bend somewhat reluctantly. The town was not a bad place, but the last two places he had allowed himself the luxury of settling into had driven him away just as he might start to consider it home. He rented a room, purchasing only those things that he needed to survive. He didn't plan on staying in the city for very long; he had been dropped off by fate, and fate had not been kind to him lately. He would stay for a week, maybe two, just long enough to heal from the physical and emotional wounds he had received from his unexpected flight from Chicago. He still favored the shoulder he had dislocated, worrying about straining it again. But that did not stop him from going for a run every morning. That same fear that kept him from settling in drove him to push his limits, and his lung capacity quickly grew until he was nearly sprinting the miles. He grew familiar with some of the back roads, the places where only residential cars ever went. He spent his nights in various hotels, never willing to spend more than a night or two in one room, no matter what kind of discount a longer stay might have earned him.

Bend advertised its river rapids with little shame, a one mile whitewater rafting stretch just a couple of miles out of town. It was a dangerous stretch of river, and it had claimed more than a couple lives in its years, but if anything that made it all the more popular. Experienced people went down it alone or in small groups. Those less familiar with navigating the water could go on a guided raft. There was an elevated platform that stretched out just over the river, only a few hundred feet from the point where most rafters would put in. Ethan found the place on one of his morning runs, and he found himself returning there with some regularity. The water below was white and frothing, and it practically enveloped the rafters who came along occasionally. He found the same comfort in the river that he had found in the ocean back in Port Townsend. The numbers practically overwhelmed him, leaving no room for extraneous thoughts. It was calming, and he mostly went in the late evening, before he had to return to his hotel room and try and sleep.

He was almost ready to move on again, to pack his few supplies and head down to the highway. He didn't need someone who would take him far, just far enough that his paranoia might let him rest again. He was going for one last run, along the route he had been running for just long enough to call himself fond of it. It took him along the river, and ended at that platform overlooking the rapids. His shirt was plastered to his back by the time he reached the overlook, and he leaned heavily on the railing, sticking his head out far to try and catch a few faint droplets from the splashing of the cold river. The water seemed particularly restless that day, the numbers easy to control. There was something flickering in the corner of his mind, something changing, but he dismissed it and turned his attention back to the swirling currents. He allowed himself the brief pleasure of altering the numbers until a swirl of water spat a floating leaf up towards him. He reached out and snagged the leaf between two fingers, a grin spreading across his face.

He released it just as suddenly when the changing number he had dismissed before suddenly forced itself into the forefront of his mind. His hands balled into fists, and his eyes widened with fear. No. It was impossible. He hadn't even known he was coming here, so how could she possibly be approaching him from behind. He turned around slowly, knowing that she had already seen him, that she was already suspicious. How had this happened?
 
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"Ahhhhhhhhhh- AH!" Her voice was soft and low and not horrifically tuneless as she half-walked, half-jogged alone on the now well-worn path. Bree clambered up on the rocks with a grin, feeling the strange hard smoothness of the rocky ledge beneath the soles of her water shoes as she made for that small ledge she'd come to think of as "her spot."

"We come from the land of the ice and snow... " Of course it was anything but all her very own, this flat rocky outcropping that overlooked the river below. But in all the time she'd been rafting in Bend, she'd never seen a single other soul up there - and Bree didn't think there'd be anyone that'd mind too much. Jarod seemed to be of that opinion, that she could do no wrong anyway - and that thought alone made her smile wider, brighter, far easier than even a week ago.

"... From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow." She slept like a baby again, like she hadn't since the end of that first date spent with Jarod. Her days spent rafting with the brothers, and all her nights with one, she was blissfully exhausted into sweet, dreamless sleep that smoothed the sharp, jagged edges of treacherous memories. There were even moments now she could almost believe none of it had been real, something she'd just... Exaggerated in her head, overblown with the stress of Victor's execution, being shot...

"The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands, to fight the horde, singing and crying, 'Valhalla, I am coming!'" As far as "ear bugs" go, there was definitely worse to be had than Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song," and besides, it was one of the few times she'd so much as heard a peep from 'Quiet Matt' anyway. No way was Bree belting it out like she did in the car him, but she just couldn't resist opening her arms dramatically wide as she stepped out on the rocky landing mouth wide open with that last powerful verse - and was instantly red-faced embarrassed into absolute silence.

Well... Damn. It was a public area of course, but that didn't stop the strange disappointment that washed over her. The brothers never minded her daily trek anyway, good-naturedly getting the raft and the equipment prepared before she returned. Bree suspected Jarod might have said... Something. Something about the real reason she was out here during the brothers' annual rafting trip, but Josh was sensitive enough - and Matt naturally quiet enough - not to say a word about her comings and goings, so long as she seemed happy, and big brother Jarod seemed happy.

And they did. And they were.

But there was a man in "her spot," sweat-soaked from jogging it seemed, and Bree bit her lip softly with annoyance. She turned to leave, return to the raft a little earlier than she'd have liked - until something drew those grey eyes back to the man, something in the way he stood that suddenly seemed so... Familiar. Unnaturally intimate, recognizable...

'Oh God no... '

It was him. Ethan. It was Ethan and... No, it couldn't be him, could it? Wherever he was, it couldn't possibly be here. And the realization that hit Bree like a baseball bat to the guts, that sucked the breath from her lungs, that prickled her skin with cold sweat despite the otherwise warm morning nearly buckled her knees.

'Shit.' She watched incredulously as a river-wet leaf levitated near to Ethan's hand, and he plucked it from the air like a snowflake. And she knew.

Bree had snapped. Something in her head had finally snapped, and she was hallucinating and... She clapped her hand over her mouth in horror, shaking her head in disbelief for a moment. This was not happening. Could not be happening.

But it was. And no matter how she wiped her eyes, she couldn't blink him away. Bree took a deep, shaking breath, her hand dropping back to her side as she stepped onto the outcropping. She felt almost naked really, only her water shoes, a T-shirt and shorts. No gun. No body armor.

Then again, he wasn't real, was he? What harm could he possibly do? Bree was many things, but she was never a coward. And if she was going to go mad? Well, best to get better acquainted with your personal demons in the end, wasn't it?

"Hello Ethan," she said softly, something very like a smile on her lips as she approached him. "It's been a while, hasn't it? You're looking amazingly well for a man who only just walked off a fifteen story building."
 
One more day.

The thought was on loop in Ethan's head, echoing, bouncing around his mind that suddenly seemed incapable of completing any other thought. One more day. One more. One day. One. One more day, and he would have been on the road. Their paths would never have crossed, and he would have worked his way around the entire country before coming into contact with her again. Maybe it would have been even more than that. Maybe, one more day, and he never would have seen her again.

But the numbers didn't deal in what might have been. They dealt in what was to come, and what was. And what was, what completely, incontrovertibly was, was the fact that Bree was standing right in front of him, staring at him with horror and something almost close to... acceptance? But Ethan could feel no acceptance. He could not accept the fact that fate, a concept he had never even begun to allow himself to believe in, had driven them together against all odds. How could she be here, now? How could he be here, now? How could they be here, together, right now?

But there was still a chance he could alter this, could set the path back on something he desired, could find one more way out, and maybe avoid this damnable fate all together. He ignored her question, scanning the numbers as fast as he could. And then he found it, a way out that was not impossible at all, but was entirely probable. She didn't believe that he was real. She thought he was just an illusion, created by her mind to torment her. And he could use that. If he was careful, maybe he could keep her believing that just long enough to get away.

"Then mommy, what are those two people doing out there?"

And then it was gone. As quick as the chance had come, it was gone. Snatched away by the same coincidences that had kept him from noticing, every time she drew close. A mother and her adventurous young son were walking along the nearby path, in the one spot where the overhang could be easily seen. The boy wanted to go out, look over the river, and his mother wouldn't let him. So he grasped onto the only possible counter he could have, there were already people out there.

"They are adults, dear. You aren't."

And she had heard it. He knew with the same certainty that he knew everything. She had heard it, and believed it. And any opportunity that may have existed was suddenly crushed, completely and totally obliterated. There was no way for him to get out, the numbers told him that with certainty. There was only one option left. He would have to kill her.

He nearly blanched as the idea passed through his mind. Images of Victor, poor blood soaked Victor flashed through his mind. And as he looked at her, he saw the wound in her chest. Saw it with a detail that only he and the surgeon who had operated on her would know. He had saved her life then, even when he could have left her to die. And she would have died, had he not intervened. The numbers, and the headache that had pounded through his head for days afterwords, told him that.

Could he really kill her? The darkness in his heart told him that he could, that it would be so easy to tweak the numbers, to push her into the river... The river.

Suddenly, a whole new range of possibilities opened up before his mind's eye. Possibilities that worked themselves together so cleanly, it was as though it was meant to be. The river beckoned him, and he forced himself not to think about what had happened the last time the numbers had come together with such ease, of the bodies it had left behind...

He had no choice. This was the only option. Just as Victor had been the only option. How was it, so far from where this whole thing had started, he had come full circle? He was once more facing certain imprisonment, and once more there was one way out. One way out that would almost certainly have unintended consequences. But he had no choice. His dice had been cast, and there was nothing left that he could change. He would not go to jail, would not go with her. And he would not take her life. His only choice was to flee, and the river beckoned.

And in one fluid movement he turned, vaulted the railing, and fell, twisting gracefully through the air as he fell. The water grabbed him gently, sweeping him away, twirling him around like a dancer. But its grip was polite, nothing like the raging current that had already claimed lives. He was free. Once more he was on the run.
 
Out of the mouths of babes...

Bree's head shot toward the boy and his mother, in an instant realizing her hallucination was no hallucination at all, just one more impossibility in a long, breathtaking string of impossibilities.

Grey eyes wide, her head shot back to Ethan. Something dark and calculating passed behind those all-too-real eyes, and then? Then he did what he always did, what he'd done each and every goddamned time she'd ever seen him, so tantalizingly close she could almost reach out and touch him...

He fled.

"Son of a... "

Straight over the railing, into the raging waters below as if he were just jumping into a neighborhood pool.

"ETHAN!" Bree clutched the railing, screaming his name, but he was gone, already long gone. There was no possible way he'd hear her - but what about any of this was possible in the first damn place? Not a thing, not a goddamned thing and he was running from her yet again, leaving her standing there again helpless, her heart in her throat -

No. Not again, dear God no not again... Bree knew the instant she moved, what it was that really sent her over that railing after the green-eyed man, and it was nothing so noble as courage, bravery... Heh... Honor? Duty? Oh no, not in the least.

It was fear.

In that one moment, she feared the nightmares, the never-ending abattoir that ravaged her sleep and stole her peace, a terror far deeper than even her fear of death. It had been fear that kept her rooted to that spot fifteen stories above a Chicago street, and it was fear now that sent her over the railing behind the green-eyed man, into the roiling, watery hell below, the sound of terrified screams of mother and child behind her accompanying her the long way down.

But she was strong, she was a good swimmer - a damn good swimmer - and if Ethan could somehow make his escape...

At least that was the small, swift glimmer of hope that crossed her thoughts as she fell.

Bree knew the minute she hit that cold, hungry water, closing over her head instantly and muffling the world as if sunlight and air simply ceased to exist - oh God, she'd made such a mistake...
 
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Unintended consequences.

He had reminded himself of them, even as he had hurtled over the edge. They were the dark face, looming just behind the brilliance, laughing at him. They were the darkness that existed in his very heart, those unintended consequences. His inability to think about anyone other than himself meant that the plans that kept him safe kept getting everyone else hurt. Emotionally hurt, scarred by his sudden disappearances and the lurking suspicion that, despite the way he acted, he never really cared about them anyways. Physically hurt, bleeding out on the pavement, clubbed over the head.

Drowned.

She had jumped in after him. Every time he had fled, it was with the certainty that he was fleeing in a way that she would not dare repeat. The boat, the police station, the building. And now, the river. For who would be foolish enough to chase after someone into one of the most deadly currents in the United States?

Unintended consequences.

He had thought that he had gone full circle before, just as he was making the choice to leap over the edge. But he had been wrong. Because, even with the water pulling him around and the headache that was beginning to form as he worked with the numbers, kept the water from sweeping him away so violently that even his luck might not be able to drag him out of it, he was also standing before that underground casino in Richmond, watching as the wound in Bree's chest slowly pumped her lifeblood out all over the concrete.

If he did nothing for her, she would die. She was already dying. The water wouldn't treat her with the same courtesy it treated Ethan. In fact, if anything, the water was worse behind him, as his tampering broke the natural rhythms that usually controlled the flow of the water, sending it into an even higher state of turbulence. There was no way she could control her progress through the water, and she could only hold her breath for so long. And it was just as likely, when that desperate moment came, that she would be under the water as it was that she would be above it. Either way, she wouldn't last the four fifths of a mile that remained before the steep drop ended and the river leveled off. They would find her broken and bloated body washed ashore in some park downriver, or in some random citizen's backyard.

This was it. This was the end of their horrific game of cat and mouse. She was dead, and he was free. He hadn't forced her to jump after him. She had made her own choice, known the consequences perfectly well. Now she was going to die, and the person who had spearheaded this whole investigation against him was going to be gone. He would finally be able to return to his own life, where he could pretend that there was nothing intrinsically wrong with him. Where he could simply be the luckiest man in the world.

Where he would be tormented forever by the deaths that hovered over him. Where her face would never allow him to forget that, for all his talents, he was entirely less than human. Because he let her die, let her die for his own selfish reasons. It didn't matter that saving her would bind him to her irrevocably. He had already saved her once. And since that moment, maybe even before, they had been bound together. It didn't matter that saving her would likely mean that he went to jail, that the free life he treasured so dearly would be gone. It didn't matter, because he could save her.

And he could. He had already saved her once, and he could do it again, almost as easily. Water was far easier to knit together than flesh, because it was always in motion. He had been studying water for hours and hours and hours, and he knew it almost as well as he knew himself. It would not be easy to go get her, but he could. And he could keep both of them alive and relatively intact until the river smoothed out, and he could drag them both ashore. And if he did nothing he would once more have taken the life of someone who was not yet ready to die. And there was nothing in his mind that could truly justify Bree as guilty. Victor had laid down his cards, he had made his choices, and Ethan had only made the death at the hands of the mob that had been waiting for him come a few years sooner. But Bree had only ever been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and had been far too moral and determined for her own good.

He could not let her die. Not here. Not now. Not when it was still possible for him to save her.

And that thought brought him peace. It was as though some giant weight that had been pressing down on his shoulders since Victor's death had been lifted away. This act would not pardon his other failure, but it would prove that he was still human. It would not get rid of the darkness he had found within himself, but it would show that it did not define his existence.

He threw himself towards her, and the numbers bent and then finally broke under the power of his will. The current spat, violently, aggressively, and hurled him back upriver. He didn't need to look to know where she was, and as he was pulled under the water after her his hands reached out blindly and closed solidly around the front of her chest. He pulled her in close to him, pressing her back tight against his chest, and the water swirled around them and pulled them both back up to the surface.

He took a deep, heaving breath before going completely limp, focusing on nothing but the numbers and his grip on Bree. It would do him no good to struggle. If he couldn't control the water, if he couldn't control the numbers, then there was no way Bree would be making it out of this alive. And that was not an option.

The time it took to get to the bottom of the rapid was the longest ten minutes of Ethan's life. The water swirled around them like an uncaged beast, always one moment away from plunging them both back under the water and keeping them there until they gave up on life and inhaled the deadly liquid. And at times even Ethan couldn't hold them both above the water any longer, and they would plunge back over, hurtled along under the water until he could find a number that would push them back to the surface.

It was the rocks that nearly broke Ethan, though. A stick was light enough that even a small eddy in the current could circle it around any potentially bone-breaking collision. Ethan alone would have had enough trouble making sure that he did not crash into anything. Ethan and Bree together, and even luck was not enough to keep them safe. He was back to finding a way to force the numbers into complete improbability, because even a single collision would be enough to shatter his concentration, and then they would both be doomed.

And when he thought he could go no further, that he must give up and die, he remembered the woman in his arms, felt the bass beat of her heart, and found another drop of resolve to pull from within himself. He committed himself fully to her survival, and he fought not for himself. He fought for another chance for her to live.

And then the rapids were over. He saw the water leveling out before he felt it. The calmer waters made the numbers much more difficult to mold, but that did not matter, because the water was also so much safer. There were no more rocks, no more sudden currents wanting to drag them under and hold them there. They had made it. And they were both alive. Now he only had to get them to shore.

But there was nothing left in him. How ironic, to find that he had the strength to get them both safely through the currents, but when they were only moments away from safety he did not even have the strength to drag them the rest of the way to shore. Now, when the water was nearly still, they were going to drown.

He couldn't open his eyes, and the numbers were starting to fade away. He knew he was bleeding, that the fragile tissues in his nose, eyes, and mouth had broken under the strain. And he knew he wasn't going to be the one to get them safely to shore. Now it would be up to Bree to save them both, or to let them both die. He had done the best he was able to do.

But his hands didn't unlatch from around her chest, even as he spiraled into unconsciousness.
 
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'What are you?'

Her first instinct was to fight, to fight the hands that wrapped around her chest. But that was the instinct of a drowning woman, and then suddenly? Suddenly she just wasn't anymore.

Somehow Bree knew, with a certainty almost as terrifying as the hungry waters all around them, that the arms that held her belonged to the green-eyed man of her nightmares. There was no one else this could possibly be. He was keeping her afloat, both of them afloat, somehow, and even when her head fell back beneath the roaring river waters, he wasn't shoving her there.

It was Ethan's arms that bought her breath, carried her above her waves, kept her safe from rocks and drowning alike.

It was Ethan's hands around her that kept her life anchored to this world.

He was strong. Bree could feel that beneath her shoulders, her back, her neck in those eternal minutes they hurtled down the whitewaters. But she knew just as certainly that it wasn't mere human strength that was fighting the river for their lives.

It couldn't be.

'What are you, Ethan?'

Those four words pounded through her head, over and over again, a roar almost as loud as the river itself. Somehow, they weren't shattered against a single rock. Somehow, he never lost his grip on her, pushed her head above the waters with his own body. Ethan refused to let her die though she could feel the unspeakable strain in every last sinew of his arms, the rasp of his breaths at her ear.

The rapids couldn't last forever, and somehow this man saw her through them. Ethan, the green-eyed man who banished her sleep... He'd just carried her through hell on Earth. And as the waters smoothed out, Bree could hear his breaths at her ear, feel the desperation thrumming through the muscles of his arms, his hands, as he clung to her still, keeping her close as if she might yet slip away from him, and be eaten by the river. But the breaths were slower, slower still, no words even now...

Bree's grey eyes opened wide, the sky above clouded and eerily still, as she felt him sink behind her. She twisted in those arms that still would not let her go, breath hissed through her teeth in shock. Those intent, impossibly green eyes were rolled up into his head, the whites bloodshot through, beads of river water mixing with the scarlet trailing from his nose, his mouth and even his ears, like obscenely brilliant ribbons trailing back to the water.

"It's all right... I got you, Ethan," Bree whispered, instinctively wrapping her own arms around his chest, pulling him closer. One hand reached up to pull his head to her shoulder, cradling him there as she kicked to the riverbank through the far kinder, gentler waters that now seemed to push them to safety.

And though he spoke not a word, likely didn't hear a single other thing in this world at all, Bree whispered soothing comfort as powerful strokes of her legs propelled them to the rocky shore. "Shhhhhh... I have you now... I won't let go either... "

Bree heaved them both to the shore, twisting and pulling as carefully as she could, knowing to the bottom of her soul that ever breath she took from now to the end of her days had been bought by the man in her arms. She struggled to sit up on those rocks, pulling Ethan to lay in her lap. There was no sign the man was conscious, that he saw or heard a thing about him or so much as knew they were no longer in the river. And yet his arms refused to relinquish their hold on her, as if she were somehow his lifeline too, every bit as much as he'd been hers.

She cradled his head in the crook of her arm, and struggled with the other to awkwardly pull her T-shirt over her own. "What are you, Ethan?" she asked softly, almost tenderly as she dabbed at the blood on his face with the only cloth she had, frowning, grey eyes lit with concern.

Could monsters really be angels, if you just scratched the surface?

"What are you?"
 
Ethan was floating somewhere between waking and oblivion. It was peaceful in a way that he had not understood since very early childhood, when his brain had finally matured enough to comprehend his ability and manifest it in a way his mind could understand; that of basic numbers. In this place somewhere between, there were no numbers. His mind was perfectly still, no longer needing to comprehend every single microscopic thing about him.

It was boring.

Peace was not Ethan's strong suit. He had never once in his life sought out peace. He lived in the moment, in the thick of things, in the constantly changing flux of reality. What use did he have for stillness? Stillness had no potential, had no room for change or growth. Stillness was cease, and Ethan was, in no way, shape, or form, ready for cease. In a moment where he could have been reveling in his first true experience of serenity he was searching for the one thing that had always complicated his life, and had made it truly unique. He was looking for the numbers. He was pulling them back towards him, and was, at the same time, pulling himself towards them, and towards what they represented. He was pulling himself towards the ever changing existence that was life.

He was not going to stay still. He was not going to let the world go on changing without him to affect it. He was going to pull as hard as he could, until he dragged himself right back out of oblivion. Because there was nothing for him here. Nothing that he would ever want to find.

The cold water of the river was a shock, but his body was too weary for him to move even so much as an eyelid. He could feel the strain vibrating through every muscle in his body, but he could also feel something warm and solid, something that thrummed with life. Bree.

So, she had survived their tumble through the rapids. He had known that, but somehow it was reassuring to feel it, to comprehend it with a certainty that mere "knowing" could never bring. She was alive. He was alive. Against all the improbability, against everything that the laws of reality dictated, they had survived. Both of them.

He knew that the pain in his head would come later. Perhaps it might stay away an hour, maybe two, but it would come. That headache had haunted him as he had first fled across the country from Bree would not spare him indefinitely. He seemed to be winding up in this position a lot since he had met her.

Still, there was something very comforting in the familiar way she held him, in the way she spoke to him. She was probably only realizing now that they were tied together, even though such had been the case since that very first day they met. Briefly he wondered if he should tell her about that first time. Then he began to wonder what difference it made.

She dragged him out of the river behind her. He could feel the change of the air, even though he was still limp and vacant. If he hadn't been floating somewhere in semi-consciousness, had their roles been reversed, there was a very good chance he would be running now. He had done his duty, he had saved her life despite her foolishness in jumping in after him. Maybe then she would let him go.

But there was no going anywhere now. She wasn't about to let him go. He could feel that in the burning question she asked him. She might not arrest him, might not drag him to the nearest police station to ask him as many questions as she could, but that did not mean the interrogation would not happen. Could he avoid it? Did he have any right to? It was his life, what right did she have to change it?

She had already changed it. He had been running, desperate to avoid that very thought. It was too late, far, far too late to go back. He would if he could. But he couldn't. He was committed, and there was no avoiding that commitment. He would have to answer her questions, because there was no other option.

How was he going to explain it to her? She would never fully understand it. Not really. But maybe, over time, she might begin to. And he did not even consider the possibility that, over time, they might not be together, one way or another.

He was able to feel his fingers again. He twitched one experimentally, and was satisfied to feel it respond. He could feel Bree mopping his face, and he tried opening his eyes. The sky was very grey. That wasn't the way it was supposed to be when you came back from the brink. It was supposed to be a clear, perfect, spotless azure. But this was far from perfect.
 
That grey sky overhead was very nearly the same color as her eyes, though she could not possibly have known such a thing.

"There you are... " Bree couldn't resist the small smile, the little twitch at one corner of her lips as she looked down at Ethan, his head still cradled in the crook of one arm, pulled closely to her body. His arms were still wrapped about her, and it was actually the twitch of a finger against the bare skin of her back that let her know yes, the movement of those impossibly green eyes was more than simply some unconscious bodily function.

Careful, tender fingers had felt Ethan's head for the source of the bleeding, but could find no laceration, no lump that could explain the blood. And though she knew very well that head and scalp wounds tended to bleed far worse than the reality of the hurt, it comforted her not at all to find nothing to explain the bleeding but some kind of... Well, she was no doctor, no nurse, but Bree could only surmise the bleeding started from within.

So when he finally began to stir, she was unspeakably relieved - and then vaguely discomfited, wondering if he'd do what he always seemed to whenever she was near, leap to his feet and run. Bree knew that if he did - because frankly, she was beginning to wonder if there were anything at all he was incapable of doing - she'd never be able to keep up with him. Whatever had happened in the rapids, whatever strangeness dictated they live where so many others before them had died, Bree was as done in as he seemed to be, and she just didn't have it in her to run after Ethan.

Her heart - her miraculously beating heart - just wasn't in it. Not anymore.

And so she simply waited, still wiping the blood as it flowed from his nose, his mouth, with the now scarlet-soaked T-shirt. In any other moment, she would have been horrified knowing how exposed that thick rope of angry pink scar truly was, bisecting her chest and rising nearly to her throat above the cut of her bathing suit top. Only Jarod had seen her like this since she'd left the hospital all those months ago - and even he simply pretended it wasn't there at all.

But strangely enough, Bree felt uncannily certain Ethan wouldn't be taken back or... Well at the very least, he wouldn't be shocked, perhaps not even horrified at the sight. She was near overcome with the unnatural certainly that... Well, somehow he simply knew.

Still cradling his head in her arm, Bree set the blood-soaked T-shirt aside with a small, resigned sigh before she began to brush the tendrils of dark, damp hair from his face.

"If you're going to run Ethan, just know I'll try to give a damn good chase. It's what I do after all, how I make my living - and most days I'm very good at my job. But in all honesty, I'm just... Tired. Really, really tired. It won't be a chase to remember, I guarantee it. And frankly, you look like hell warmed over anyway. I don't think either one of us is up for a whole lot of cat-and-mouse at the moment so... Can we not? Please?" A small, humorless bark of a laugh escaped her lips as her long fingers tucked a piece of his hair behind one ear.

"What are you, Ethan? I feel flesh and I've wiped away your blood, but I've seen you do things that simply... They shouldn't be. I thought I was going batshit insane. I really did. But you're here. And I'm here. And that's just as impossible as everything else that's happened since the casino in Richmond."
 
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