apassingafternoon | between two points

between two points

The journey was largely uneventful.

They passed some angry yaks and Kaine's 'skirt' fell off and she squealed before she fumbled it back on but that was about the extent of things. It took the entire afternoon and the sun had long fallen by the time her home/little compound made itself known, even against the mountains. Just as she had thought the lights were on inside and her animals made their familiar, happy shuffling noises. Shivering, Kaine didn't bother to explain a damn thing just yet, no matter how many questions might linger on Alain and Cuthbert's tongues. She undid the strings to her gate to let them in and then quickly closed and retied it from the other side to help keep the wolves out.

As they traveled up the little stone path to her door Kaine could smell dinner and suddenly she knew with frightening clarity that Roland and Nariko hadn't gone anywhere. Maybe into town but returning to Roland's world wasn't currently on their mind. That didn't bother her but she knew it would only further aggravate Bert who was already in a shit mood and poor Alain who was in pain and shouldn't have been traveling at all.

Kaine opened her door and sighed even as she heard a gun unholstering and knew from its soft whistle that it was Nariko's.

"You're not shooting me in my own fucking house," Kaine said, raising a brow at her best friend. Her ex-lover. "... How did you even find a dress that tight?"

Because it was certainly that, a rich blue and figure hugging, paired well with her dark hair left down, too genuinely Nariko-ish for Kaine to believe this was some odd dream she was still having in the corners of her brain. They were here and Nariko was alive. Roland was alive. Kaine couldn't see the telltale ring on either of them. That crazy bitch-god had kept her word and brought her back, let Roland go find her. Kaine had never believed in anything but even though her expression remained deadpan she suddenly wanted to praise any God that might listen to her.

"Wei." Nariko answered but her voice was thin and uncomprehending. "Why are you - how?" Her eyes darted to Alain and Cuthbert as if unable to fully understand their existence, Kaine could clearly see her friend trying to puzzle out what the hell was going on but she gave up halfway through. Her gun went back to the table and Kaine gave up before she started and let herself be pulled back into those familiar, warm arms, the protective grip.

"I'm home." She didn't know if anyone heard it, didn't really care. Shit was going to hit her own fan, but Kaine earned these few seconds.

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Well, as mildly self-pitying as it was at least she was being useful to someone around here. It gave her a kind of satisfaction that might not have been at all appropriate for the moment or their situation. Which was exactly why she trampled that feeling and, from the other side of the bed, handed it over. She had done her best to hide the slightly bitter aftertaste that came with the medicine, with sugar of all things, but only Alain would know how successful she had been.

"It's the least I can do." The absolute least of all the least. Kaine sat on the side of the bed, still in her awkward blanket-skirt, and Bert's shirt. It didn't bother her so much now, "He was right. If I had said something before, your friend would be alive. There's nothing I can do to make up for that, so everything from now on, until you all return home, will just be the least of it." It was something she had clearly resigned herself to, without anger or real upset.

He took the mug, breathing in the steam, and closed his eyes. Cinnamon tea. His father had always liked cinnamon, had steeped it in his tea as well. Strange, how smell could be a shortcut to memory. He welcomed it now, though, that smell of winter nights and childhood, the smell that had hung on his father's shirts some nights. He could use that anchor.

He took a little sip, opening his eyes again, but looking into the mug rather than at Kaine. She wasn't the only one who was sometimes shy. "If you'd said something before," he said at last, "then we would have relied on you alone. You would have pushed yourself too hard and too fast, and you would still have fallen as you did. Then we would have had an army oncoming, and a Spectre there to kill us besides. Or you would have died, and we would still have lost the war. Jamie would still have died, and so, in all probability, would we." Now he looked up at her, wrapping both hands around the mug. The line of his mouth was soft, but his eyes were almost as piercing as Roland's for a moment. "You didn't start the war. You didn't destroy our walls. You didn't take our lines of defence from us one by one. And you didn't kill Jamie. Farson and the Crimson did."

The benefit of the mutually shy, those less immediate and burning such as Cuthbert and Nariko, was that Kaine understood. She settled against the pillows and didn't mind that he didn't look at her just yet, but when he did she suddenly found it impossible to look anywhere but at him. When her lip trembled she bit it, ducked her head down for just a second and breathed out slowly, and then laughed thinly, with something close to relief.

"You're smart in that way that stops me from being an idiot." Because he was right. There was no combination of unearthly, crazy powers and strategy that would work. Not without Nariko. Not until Kaine had her sword back. "... Thank you. I know you're only telling the truth, but still."

"It's the least I can do," Alain replied, in gentle mockery of her earlier response, and reached out to pat her arm. "What you did, whyever you did it, was worth a lot. You bought us time, and you made a dent in Farson's forces that he won't forget in a hurry. That's more than we could have hoped for from that battle. This has never been a war Gilead could win."

Withdrawing his hand, he took a long drink of his tea, and closed his eyes again, his forehead furrowed a little. "As for Bert... he's angry and upset, and before too long he'll remember himself. But I think sometimes that he feels things deeper than any of us. And he took a lot on himself, and even knowing it was hopeless from the start, that's a heavy burden to bear." He gave her a little smile. "But he'll bear it. And when he remembers what Cort always said about blame, he might even learn to live with it."

Her lips quirked in a sarcastic but oddly loving smile at that. Oh, the gentle one had a sense of humor, too! Even better. It felt nice and weirdly normal. Was she allowed to feel normal with everything that went on? Who could say.

"I wonder if there's really any 'sometimes' about it." To her it seemed he always felt everything very deeply, like he could never turn himself off and it made him react in many different, often damaging ways. It was really no wonder that he reminded her of a certain someone. "Makes sense that he would time, but I still need to know where he is before I can even dream of getting any sleep." She might not even dare to try and speak with him, just knowing if he was at least on her property would be enough. "What did Cort say?"

"Fault lies in one place; with him weak enough to lay blame." Like Roland, Alain recited the words almost by rote, smiling a little sadly as he said them. "If he were here, I do believe he and Bert would have come to blows by now."

What he didn't say was that, for Bert, that would likely come as a relief. Alain knew his friends. Roland dealt with grief in quietness and in ever fiercer devotion to what he had left, but Bert was of a fierier breed. What he needed was to rage and hate and strike out, and that he wasn't doing that concerned Alain more than anything else.

But he said none of that. That was Bert's own business. Instead, he just took another long breath of the cinnamon-scented steam, and sighed. "Be careful when you go to find him. A gunslinger on edge is a dangerous thing."

Cort sounded like a very hard man, one Kaine wouldn't have gotten along with at all.

"I will be. But anything is better than him having stayed. It wouldn't have been a two person fight by any means. She's too protective now." And that would have been the worst, most unbearable position for Kaine to be in. Nariko protective over everything that had occurred, protective of Roland just as much as whatever they had created together in this not-space, and Bert, just angry and pained.

"Better that he hits me than anyone else here. At least I heal quicker." She meant that to be funny but as she said it ... Well, it came out as anything but that.

Alain looked almost physically pained. "You've healed from too much today," was all he said, very quietly and mostly into his tea. "If he hits you, hit him back."

That, too, might be what Bert needed. Someone to hit him. Otherwise, he might just keep doing all the beating up himself, and watching him turn all his anger and hurt inwards was awful. It was like watching a man burn up from the inside.

He drank down the rest of his tea slowly, making it last. After a few moments, he said, "Someone ought to be protective of Ro'. It's been a long time that we've had that job to ourselves."

She had yet to heal from much of anything just yet, but since his eyes were elsewhere, she nodded. Why he looked so hurt all of the sudden ... She didn't know what that might be, but it passed and nothing else mattered. If Bert really was that upset, that prepared to blow, then Kaine would handle the situation as it happened.

At that, Kaine laughed gently. "I would almost say the same, but four years isn't a very long time." Nothing compared to the near twenty Bert and Alain had with their dinh. Their Roland. "It makes me happy, to be honest. In truth I always knew it would." And, here, she began near comical imitations of things said to her, "'You're just upset because you don't have a man', and 'you don't get to keep a foolish crush for so long'. It was never even that. I was just scared for her. It's not like anyone gave her the time to be. But now it's," She tilted her head towards the door but her eyes remained fixed on the wall. "... It's better. I thought it would be if they could be alone. At this rate, she'll probably die before she let's anyone even touch him the wrong way, let alone the two of you."

Kaine leaned into the pillows but her eyes closed as her head tilted up a bit. "I guess it'll still be a little sad for a while, but ..." Her sudden desire to talk disappeared, a not-so-proverbial roadblock. "Were you ever worried about it?" This marriage.

He didn't ask for an explanation. Instead, he just shrugged, sipping at his tea, his eyes closed and his head resting back against the head of the bed. "Of course I was," he said at last, frankly. "I feared it with everything in me. That she would be someone he couldn't love, and that she would be someone he could. That she would distract him, that he would abandon her. I did nothing but worry about it from the moment she came to Gilead to the moment she left. I've seen what women - what love can do to Roland. And to all of us."

For a moment, he lapsed into silence. Then, looking at her, he said suddenly, "It reflects, you know. Bert feels it too. With Susan, and now with Nariko. We're an-tet, and both of us have the Touch besides. When he loves, I love, and even reflected it's a fierce flame." His look changed, turned almost apologetic. "When Bert loves, I feel that, too."

All of that was very fair and, really, the best answer that she could have expected. And yet Alain somehow wandered into territory that was utterly foreign and Kaine found herself lost. She wasn't entirely without situational awareness - he looked upset again so obviously something about what he'd mentioned was the cause - but she very obviously wasn't grasping half of this.

"What?" Kaine frowned a bit. "Alain, you've lost me a bit, here. It sounds like you're saying that when Roland falls in love with someone the both of you have to feel that, too." He was also heavily implying that Bert was in love with - with -- Fuck that. No. One issue at a time. "Which would sort of mean there's a really weird, vaguely unsettling love four-way going on here."

"Feel it. Not..." He struggled with the words, and finally gave up, sighing and starting over. "I'm not in love with Nariko." Or with you, he thought, but didn't say. Like her, he had decided it was best to deal with one issue at a time, especially when his head was starting to feel rather cloudy. "But I can feel his love for her, especially when I'm near them. Bert..." He frowned. "I don't think he realises that's what's happening. He doesn't feel it so strong. There's just a comfortableness around her that wasn't there before. It's hard to explain."

To say the least. Sighing again, he wrapped both hands back around the mug and tipped his head back, looking up at the ceiling. "I don't feel it," he said at last, "I just touch it. Like sitting by the river where he's swimming. But for a while, just a while, he actually seemed happy." And that hurt worst of all, to see it ripped away.

"They were. I mean, Nariko sees things the way she wants to sometimes, but that was hardly the case. Apparently they babysat. It's a little cloudy because she's upset, but when Bert said that ..." An unbelievable sharp pain slithered down to her stomach. "Well, unfortunately it's gone now."

Kaine slid down on the bed to lie down, her hands clasped over her stomach. She didn't feel the same nervousness that might have come with other men, the pressure for something that would have been ill-timed and frankly wrong. "But I understand. And, really, love is about the most terrible thing, Alain. I almost wouldn't recommend it." Almost. "In any case it's good that you only feel it offhandedly, in a sense. Then we'd end up with some weird five way and everything would be an even bigger mess, especially since Roland scares the shit out of me."

She paused, and looked over at him, eyes piercing, she opened her mouth to say something, and then forced it to close. "Is it working?" That was very far from tell me Bert isn't in love with me, tell me you don't feel that from him at all.

Alain answered with an unfeigned yawn and a smile. "Hard to say, as I was already close to falling down from tiredness," he replied, rather wryly. "As for Roland, you'd be mad not to fear him. He's the truest gunslinger I've ever known. And at our heart, what gunslingers are is still killers."

He said it simply, as if it could be no other way. And, really, it couldn't. What they had always been taught was to make themselves weapons. Bert's silliness and brashness, Alain's own quiet kindness... those were really just the covers that the weapons wore. He would never consider anyone less for fearing Roland, who wore no cover over the gleaming steel underneath. Roland had never scared Alain - even if he'd made him worry endlessly - but that was only because they were of a kind.

If he was honest, his only doubt about Kaine fearing Roland was that she didn't fear him and Bert too.

Finishing off his tea, he set the mug aside and settled down under the covers, closing his eyes. "Anyroad, I don't think you'd have to worry about any crossed links. Nariko and Roland only have eyes for each other, anyone can see that." He yawned again.

Kaine would say that, yes, it was beginning to work since he could barely go a whole minute without yawning all over the place. She remained on the bed anyway, because he wasn't quite asleep yet and she had promised to stay until then. The idea of seeing Bert hadn't become any simpler in her mind, of course, so that helped her stay just as much as Alain himself did.

"You really think so?" Of course Roland had effectively jumped at the first opportunity to get her back, and that was as positive a sign as any, but something remained an obstacle. "I hope you're right about that."

And she hoped that when it really came down to it she could trust Roland to be what Kaine was now barred off from. Bu she kind of doubted it even now.

"In any case I think you're free of worrying about anything else for a little while."

"Wouldn't that be nice," Alain remarked with an acerbic kind of humour in his voice, shrugging one shoulder. Worry was probably the biggest constant in his life, the last few years. It was a side effect of spending too much time around Bert and Roland, he suspected. It had become almost a friend to him.

Which wasn't to say he didn't appreciate having someone to share the burden. And he was relieved that someone was going to find Bert, although he wouldn't say so; Bert hated to be pitied or worried over, but from Kaine, it might be different. There was hope. For those of them left, there was always hope.

"Jamie would have been amazed by this place," he said sleepily, his voice thick. "Those pills you gave me. And whatever was in the tea. He would have loved to know about them."

And that was the last thing he said. A couple of moments later, he was snoring, fast asleep.

For just an extra moment Kaine remained. There was something easy about listening to Alain sleep (also, if she shared that idea with anyone but Nariko, well, Kaine would just sound insane, wouldn't she?) but she stood and left him to his unconscious state before she fell asleep right along with him. A few steps and a door closed behind her and she was back in her pale, halfheartedly decorated room.

She didn't pause to look at anything, only assessed that nothing else was inside, that neither Nariko or Roland had invaded her space, and went to her closet. The blanket was shed for her comfortable running pants (they said 'yo-ga' on the rear but Kaine didn't know what the hell that could even mean, or why you would put words on your own ass). The heart sweater Nariko had knitted for her years ago went on over Bert's shirt, and after that, well, there was nothing to do but find the man himself.

Even with the mountains that curved around her home and land, protecting her from the rest of the world, there was still an acre of land to consider. Most of it was taken up by the animal pens and their little grazing spots, but the back end had been turned into a makeshift practice range for Nariko long ago. Slightly off to one side of that was the little path up into the mountains that went to the garden.

Kaine considered all of these places while she headed down the steps and back outside because she really didn't want to think that Bert had gone beyond the gates. If he'd been that stupid he wouldn't need to throw a punch first she might just punch him herself.

Bert had, in fact, headed up the little mountain path. Part of him wanted to go out and find the wolves howling in the distance, although whether to shoot them or run with them he wasn't sure. Either way, he was lucid enough to realise that was a bad idea. So. The mountains it was.

He was sitting halfway up the path, chin resting on one knee, tossing pebbles and watching them bounce off the rocks. It was aimless, but that was okay. He felt pretty aimless himself. It wasn't even precisely anger or grief or guilt any more; the feelings inside him had been bubbling together for hours now, mixing into something dark and thick that he couldn't quite pin down. He'd rather have felt anger. Anger could be burnt off, fought through, salved with a bloody nose or bloody fists. This, whatever it was... This, he didn't know how to deal with.

The cold was biting, raising gooseflesh on his bare arms and chest. He had welcomed it at first, a reminder that he was alive and feeling. But over the last hour or so, it had settled into a kind of numb ache which so perfectly mirrored how he felt that he hardly even noticed it any more. Besides, what was the alternative? He'd be damned if he was going to risk dealing with Roland again just now. If he had to look his dinh in the eye, he'd either punch him or burst out crying, and neither seemed particularly productive.

So he stayed right where he was, throwing stones and whistling an off-key rendition of Ease On Down The Road. It was easiest that way.

She left the path, like all good and occasionally tiring things, for last. So of course that's where he was.

Kaine dodged a little pebble as it floated down her way, and she paused a few steps before him. If it wasn't for the unbearable shine of the moon there wouldn't have been anything but darkness. She watched him for a second, had no idea what to say, and then decided to just blurt something out.

"I'm guessing you haven't seen Sauerkraut around here?"

"Wouldn't know, seeing as I have no idea what you just said." Bert didn't look up, aiming a pebble with dead-on accuracy at a little tuft of grass. "Shouldn't you be inside getting a hot meal and some sleep? You survived a massacre. Should be fucking celebrating." He threw another pebble, rather harder than necessary, and watched it go skipping off in the moonlight to vanish into the deep shadow between two rocks.

"My cat," She explained without touching the rest of it just yet. "Or rather, my grandma's. A mean old thing that never went away."

Kaine walked up a few more steps but she didn't sit beside him, rather just one step up and off to the side. Maybe it was some subconscious desire to give him more space, even though she thought that was maybe the last thing he needed, one way or the other.

"There isn't a lot to celebrate when Alain's worried, was until he asked to sleep, Roland feels like shit - as you might think he should - and when I'm just worried about you. And I know how you go on about hating that and all that shit but, frankly, you can get over that part or keep pouting about it. Because that's how everyone feels and it's not going anywhere."

Cuthbert considered that for a moment, then shrugged, tossing the pebble he was holding from hand to hand. Some of his grace was gone, dulled by the cold, but it gave him something to keep his eyes on, and that was a lot easier than looking at her. Or at anything important, really.

"Worry about me all you want. Just keep it to yourself." He clenched his jaw for a moment, his shoulders hunched. "In return, I promise not to throw stones at your cat if it creeps up on me."

Actually, part of him rather wished it would. Animal company might not be so bad, just now. All the warmth and not-alone of having someone there, without people's bothersome need to talk about feelings. You could talk to a cat and it wouldn't judge you or pity you or ask you what you meant.

His cold-numbed fingers fumbled the stone, and he cursed as he dropped it on the path, but didn't move to pick it up. Instead, he put his hand to his throat, touching where the crow skull had once hung.

"I used to have the Lookout for this," he mused aloud, almost as if he'd forgotten she was there. "Could use his advice right about now."

She was entirely too tired and worn down to hide how much all of that stung, which was exactly what he was so good at, made for in a sense. It didn't matter one way or the other, he wasn't looking at her and he wouldn't have cared any if he was. It was hard to reconcile Alain's implication with the man in front of her. "The skull." The one that terrified Nariko because of deep, inset beliefs. "It probably wouldn't tell you anything you didn't already know."

Or that Alain hadn't known long before, or that Roland understood entirely, in that way that close friends, pairs could comprehend.

"They'll go to bed soon, will you at least come inside, then? Really seems like shit to survive all of that and then catch pneumonia."

"If it happens, it happens." He laughed, but it was nothing like his usual light, merry laugh. It was a harsh, bitter kind of bark that sounded more like it should have come from Roland's mouth - and under that harshness, just a hint of a quaver, like tears might have choked it for a moment. "That's ka, isn't it? Ka like a fucking wind."

He'd cried on her once before. He didn't particularly want to do it again. Instead, he clamped his jaw tight, screwed his eyes shut, and sat for a moment with his fists clenched tight enough that his nails bit red crescents into his hands. Breathe in, breathe out. In and out, in and out, until he had control of himself again.

"Anyroad," he said at last, with something like his old sharp humour, "this is exactly what sai Lookout was good for. Who knows how to deal with death better than the dead?"

"The living, for one thing. They're the ones that have to deal with the repercussions."

Alain had said that if Bert were to hit her than she would have to hit back. He thought that she wasn't afraid of him or Bert in any way but that was the farthest thing from the truth. Sure, Roland scared her in his own way but the only one who terrified her right down to her bones, in a way that had given her strange dreams and nightmares since the moment she kissed him was one Cuthbert Allgood. No one else. Roland and Alain could attempt to kill her and do it without a single thought but Bert could absolutely destroy her beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Even knowing that, she pressed. Maybe not with any subtlety or tact, but she did. "But not Roland and Nariko, right? Because they weren't there. Roland wasn't there for you, not for Jamie, either. The person I might as well have helped to kill. You said it yourself. Maybe Lookout would only tell you that you should have just let me die. Win your war. Roland would come back and you'd have been a better dinh than him, somehow."

Just the right button pushed, the right nerve and all that control would just tumble right out of him and Kaine would deal with what was left over. Since he wouldn't let anything else happen he hadn't left many options.

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http://wintxersoldier.tumblr.com/post/112814152085/dartagnan-sass

someone needs to tell him his real name is Cuthbert and get it over with

Right?

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