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[noburden]

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[noburden]

What a terribly loaded question. Jill just looks at him and pretends he did not ask.

"I see what you meant about the pulling," she says, brushing off her knees, knowing her skin is scraped beneath her clothing. She decides to keep her gaze on Torgal, who cautiously wags his tail, both his people in the same place again.

[rosarianoath]

He has some thought to reach for her hands anyway, to inspect them for damage. Worse, he has the thought that he'd love to kiss them, cover up the hurt with something else. He can do neither.

"He's terrible even when he's in good spirits," he remarks, and he drops to one knee at Torgal's side to pet him, as if that might break the tension. Force Jill to look at him, if only for a second. "Aren't you, boy?"

[noburden]

There's no chance of him helping her hurts when he's the greatest hurt of all.

Jill crosses her arms and looks elsewhere when Clive kneels. Her eyes drift up to the sky and she closes them for a moment, willing the stinging in her palms and knees to fade.

"I may have to admit defeat if he doesn't calm down soon."

[rosarianoath]

He looks up at her, fingers still raked through Torgal's mane.

"What would you like me to do, in that case?"

[noburden]

Really, she wishes he wouldn't look at her. Even with her gaze averted, she can feel his blue eyes on her.

"I don't know." Very helpful. She sighs, kneeling herself, Torgal's cold wet nose sniffing her face. "He may need to stay with you after all."

Oh, but she doesn't want to lose him, too.

[rosarianoath]

"I wouldn't take him from you, Jill," he reminds her, continuing to watch her from just over Torgal's back. She's never been so reluctant to meet his eyes, and his brows knit in concern. For this, for all of it. "Would it be overstepping to suggest we walk him together?"

It's that or enlisting someone else, and he'll take his damn dog back before he suggests Dion.

[noburden]

Strange, how the suggestion both makes her stomach sink and her heart jump.

"I don't think that's a very wise idea, Clive," she says, still refusing to look at him as she scratches under Torgal's chin. The dog huffs, pleased to have the affection of them both, and Jill is sorry it won't last.

[rosarianoath]

"Why?" he asks. "Surely you don't despise me that much."

[noburden]

"It would be easier if I did," she says miserably. Torgal whines and Jill presses her forehead against a much furrier one, leaving it at that.

Surely he must know how much it hurts to be around him, now.

[rosarianoath]

The furrow of his brow deepens, and he feels nothing but hurt for her, for them, for the pain he has caused. If he could wave it all away, he would, but if he had that ability, perhaps he could have found his courage and endured his woes to begin with.

“I know,” he says, quietly. “I’ll understand if it’s too much, but to me, walking Torgal together is a good place to start. You shouldn’t fear seeing me forever.”

[noburden]

"It's not fear," she says, feeling vaguely insulted. She has nothing to fear from him. She only grows tired of enduring, and the wound he's left cannot heal if he's there to open it every time she speaks to him.

Jill finally looks at him, sadness written on her face.

"You and I are strangers. I don't know you."

[rosarianoath]

The look in her eyes is about as arresting as what she says, and he has the knee-jerk reaction of refusing that very thought. A beat later, he’s still there.

“You’re still the girl I grew up with, who held my hand as we ran in the rain, who made my cause her own,” he says. “If the parts of me that are broken make me a stranger to you, then so be it, but I at least remember.”

[noburden]

"Oh, Clive. We've always had broken parts, you and I both."

She doesn't think she's that same girl he knew. If so, how could he discard her so easily? How could he ever think she'd be better off like this? There's too much disconnect for her to make sense of it.

[rosarianoath]

“I know,” he agrees. His chest feels tight, his eyes misty when she looks at him that way. When she says his name. “But not like this, in a way that won’t mend.”

He gives Torgal one more squeeze and then he stands.

“Just take him off the lead. If you’re fined, I’ll pay it.”

He’ll figure out how to afford that later.

[noburden]

Jill swallows down the burning desire to grab him by the shoulders and--she doesn't know what. Shake him? For what good that would do.

"I suppose that's the only option. The outlaw returns," she says, and once she would have laughed at her own joke. Now, it's just grim.

[rosarianoath]

His gaze falls abruptly, and he wishes, not for the first time, that he could go back. Back to before Origin. It's fruitless. Unfixable.

"I'm sorry I don't have better answers for you."

[noburden]

"We'll make it work," she says softly, petting Torgal. "This city wasn't made for him."

[rosarianoath]

It certainly wasn’t.

“Do you like the city?” he asks.

[noburden]

She liked it when she had him to share and explore it with.

"Sometimes. I didn't think I would be spending my days here with Dion, but it is what it is, isn't it?"

She keeps her eyes on Torgal.

[rosarianoath]

It is what it is. He pauses, torn with guilt, and then says: “I think we need to talk. Not here or now, but… when you’re ready.”

[noburden]

The last time they needed to talk he ripped her heart from her chest. There's a clear memory of that in her eyes when she looks to him.

"I can't imagine we have anything left to talk about."

[rosarianoath]

His own heart twists.

“I just wanted to take a step back, not sever ties completely,” he says, cautiously. “I think that leaves plenty, but if that’s how you feel... I’ve earned your disgust.”

[noburden]

"What did you imagine that looking like, Clive? Like the years before, walking on eggshells around our feelings?"

Moments stolen and swept under a carpet because there was so much bigger than them and their relationship. His devotion was always pulled in too many ways for one man.

Jill shakes her head.

"I can't accept that. I don't know how to not... love you, and I hate that you've made me ashamed of it. Made me question if it's too much."

All she's wanted is to be by his side.

[rosarianoath]

“I never once considered our hesitation to make love or say the word a matter of our feelings a mistake,” he replies, a little rumble of disagreement on his voice, but there’s no lack of concern there, either. “I thought we were doing the best we could.”

He’d been grateful for every moment with her. Grateful that he’d been an inch short with his blade, grateful that he could look at her across a campfire. He still is. Had she seen that as inadequate, some extended deprivation? Had he always failed her as a partner?

There’s a growing pit in his stomach, and for a moment he looks at her, on the cusp of saying something else. But the questions continue: Is he worthless to her if he isn’t her lover? Better off dead to her than not with her? Was that why she was fine with him leaving the first time?

Clive finally just says:

“I don’t want to talk about this here.”

Did you despise me after I left for Origin, too?

[noburden]

"Then are we talking about this now, somewhere else?"

She's quietly irritated enough, and Torgal's ears flick downwards in response. Jill doesn't want to go anywhere with Clive. She doesn't want to talk to him. And yet here she is, not walking away when she should.