It didn't happen all at once. It was a hard leap to make. Reynolds had been so sure. Everything had fallen into place just the way she'd described it until the hearing itself, and then...nothing. The scheduled time for his departure came and went, and Julia told him they were still reviewing his files and that he would be returned to the lower levels until they came back with their answer to make room for the next prospective patients.

He left his room empty with the guard escort, and as they walked he cast glances into all seventeen rooms between his door and the elevator. None of them were occupied.

He tried to contact Reynolds several times through the other staff. When they didn't just brush him off they told him to be patient, and that she was working on it. The longer he waited the fewer positive responses he got, and as more and more of the staff was replaced he began to get impatient. He had things to do and the delay was becoming unacceptable.

Eventually one of the newer nurses told him that Reynolds had been re-assigned to a different location. When he pressed to find out if he'd been given a new doctor, the nurse said he'd have to speak to his counselor, who was not yet available but would be arriving in the next week.

He bided his time, and no counselor appeared. He asked again and was rebuffed. He demanded and they put him in solitary, and when they came to take him out they gave him four injections that left him nearly senseless, but he could tell he was being moved. There were hallways and elevators, and then he was being dumped onto a minimally yielding surface and left alone.

The adult ward was much different than the juvenile ward. The liquid despair had crystallized. He spoke to no one and kept near to his room, watching and waiting and looking for guards. There were no guards unless there was a problem. The only normal monitoring was done through cameras and loudspeakers, and the guards usually took their time about breaking up a fight. Sometimes they didn't come at all.

He waited and watched for the sign, the indisputable sign that Reynolds had abandoned him, and three weeks later it came.

They brought her in just as drugged as he had been, and he waited until the guards left and then slipped inside. None of the doors had locks except the ones that led outside.

One morning the guards came and handed her a pair of scrubs, and she knew. On some unconscious level, too deep for her to acknowledge, she'd been waiting for it. Still, for a moment she refused to accept it, but one look at the faded clothes in her hands was all the proof she needed, and Kat quietly changed and let them lead her back downstairs.

They took her to a different ward, a different room, but she didn't notice. She just went into her room and did not come out. She slept, mostly, stared at the ceiling whenever she was awake, and did not move. The weight of her disappointment held her in place, and she found that she had no appetite, no anger, no will. It didn't seem to matter. The only emotion she could muster was a lack of any emotion at all, and Kat just lay there and let her silent apathy smother her.

For two weeks she stayed there, losing the weight she'd gained until she was down to muscle and bones again, forgetting her hope of release until her eyes burned empty and uncaring. For two weeks she slept and stared and dreamed.

Then one day, she woke up furious.

And she stayed that way.

Fury gave her strength, and she used that strength against anyone she saw. It did not matter who, or why. She simply hated everyone; all of Charybdis, the world... herself. Every day it grew, and she fed it, with all the things that had ever hurt her. Her father. Jax. James' abandonment. The promise that Reynolds had made. Mode's parole. All these things were fuel, and she tortured herself with them, and the fire grew.

Kat spent most of her time in solitary, but when she was out, she was fighting. She found Sandre, and made him tell her all the people who had hurt him, and then she hurt them in return. She found Burr, and all the boys he had left, and this time she killed him. She sought out anyone who would fight her, anyone who wouldn't, and when there was no one left, she hurt herself.

She had lost the restraints that she'd had before, and she did whatever she wanted, whenever. There were no consequences anymore that could frighten her. They could not offer her the possibility of parole, because she'd already had it, and she'd already lost it. They could not threaten her with the labs, because she'd already been, and she'd already survived. Nothing they did now mattered. Nothing she did mattered.

Somewhere in the endless days and endless nights, she discovered Crystal Bliss.

Before, drugs were something she never would have considered. They had tortured her with them in the labs, and she had seen what they could do to the people who were addicted to them. She remembered what they felt like. She remembered the junkie who had attacked Mode. Kat swore that she wouldn't touch it.

One hit was all it took.

Suddenly she was invincible. She was no longer a small, scared girl, trying to survive with nothing but a knife; no, she was a goddess, all power and inhumane strength and unholy fury. For someone who had never had power, it was intoxicating. She looked at her own hands and felt real, felt like she'd been given something that the world had cheated her out of the day she was born, and Kat smiled.

It took fifteen guards to take her down. She killed two of them. They finally beat her nearly unconscious and dumped her in solitary. There, she slowly recovered, wishing desperately for another taste, and knowing she would never leave Charybdis. Sometimes they came in and sedated her, and she did not fight them; it was easier to endure the dark when she couldn't think about it, and some time during her long, long stay, she woke up from another drugged sleep and saw Asmodeus watching her.

This wasn't solitary, this wasn't her room, and her head spun from the drugs and from trying to understand what was happening. She barely managed to roll over before she was gagging. They hadn't fed her recently and so there was nothing in her stomach, but it burned all the same, and there were tears in her eyes when she curled up and looked to him.

"Below the labs, I think." He sounded uninterested even to himself. He passed a hand over his closely shaven head and then rubbed his eyes. It had taken her a long time to wake up, and he hadn't slept. "It's hard to tell. The cells are smaller down here and the layout is different."

He pushed himself to his feet and went to the door. There had been voices outside earlier, but a quick look told him they were gone now. He pulled the door closed again and then leaned against the wall next to it. "No locks. They've got those instead." He nodded at the camera and then paced slowly along the wall farthest from her.

He was beginning to question why he'd come in here. It wasn't like they were friends, and she wasn't going to have the answers he wanted. He didn't even know if he wanted them. He was beginning to accept that he was going to be in Charybdis for a long time, maybe forever, and learning the details of why wasn't as important as it used to be. How was what drove him now, how to eat, how to sleep, how to survive until...until something else happened to change things again.

Kat didn't help the how. She complicated it, and there was no reason for him to be here.

But she was the only person left who knew him, even a little bit. She was vicious and rude and dangerous, but she was familiar. He felt the same relief he heard in her voice, the relief that said, I am glad to see you because I have seen you before, so not all things have changed.

Tired despair filled her, and her lips pressed together in a thin line. They had stuck her in the adult ward. She would be here forever.

"It's the grown up ward," she said quietly, with the same blank indifference that he had. "It's where they send you when they don't want you anymore."

That was the truth, and she knew it, but that didn't make it any easier to say it out loud. Instead, it made accepting their downfall that much harder, and she slid out of bed before she could wallow in misery any longer. Her bare feet hit the floor, and she tightened the ties of her pants, brushed the wrinkles from her shirt, and straightened her shoulders, empty determination written plainly on her face.

"I'm hungry. You've been here longer. Where is the food? Where are the guard stations? Where's your room? I might as well know where things are."

Since I'm going to be here awhile. Forever. But at least you're here. The thought reassured her more than it should have, and she looked him over, trying to decide why she felt grateful and guilty at once. Finally she decided she didn't want to know, and gave him a smile that was sharp around the edges.

"Yeah."

She was still a little unsteady, but it didn't show much. He showed her the guard station, where the occupant gave them a bored glance. He showed her the dispenser where she could place her palm to receive a cellophane-wrapped meal packet three times a day. None came down for her - she hadn't been in the system long enough - but he wordlessly handed over his. He even showed her his room, such as it was. It was on the opposite side of the complex from hers, and just as bare and empty. His blanket was folded under the mattress so no one would take it, but there was nothing else for him to protect from theft.

The common areas were mostly empty. There was nothing in them except a few worn tables and chairs bolted into the floor. There was another machine that dispensed toiletries - toothbrushes, soap, etc. - that also required a palm identification. The bathing areas. The toilets. The tiny library with the closed network desks. The extremely well-guarded elevator.

There was a display panel that offered up bland broadcasts for public viewing. It had a thick shield of polycarbon over it, and the channel could not be changed, but it was something new. There wasn't much else to see, and he didn't really feel like exploring, and so they ended up back at her room only a couple of hours later.

It didn't take them long to make a cursory tour, and soon they returned to her room. Kat immediately sat down on the edge of the bed. All the walking had tired her out, and the aftereffects of the sedatives had given her a terrible headache. She propped her chin in her hands and looked wearily up at Asmodeus, who was seemed uncomfortable, like he didn't want to be around her any longer. She didn't really blame him.

"You can go," she said softly, to let him leave without having to make an excuse. For a moment she wondered why she would do such a thing, why she would make it easy for him, but it didn't really make a difference. He already had his hand on the door, and Kat turned away and lay down again. "You look tired. I'm tired too. I'll see you."

She heard him leave, and once the door slid shut, she closed her eyes.

I'm glad you're here too.

For the next week, she stayed close to her room, venturing out only for food and, finally, to take a shower. The lack of routine was disorienting, and she felt as if there was something she just wasn't understanding; there had to be some sort of schedule, some hierarchy that she didn't see, but nothing was evident to her. It made her uncertain, and when she never saw Asmodeus that entire week, she wondered if she didn't understand him either.

At the end, on that seventh day, it became too much. Some man in one of the common areas had spoken to her, and it spooked her for a reason she couldn't define. Suddenly all she could focus on was that her door had no lock, and she no knife, and when evening came she couldn't sleep. Kat paced around her room for an hour with angry indecision before she finally swept the blanket from her bed and set off toward the other side of the ward.

He came to his door only after she'd knocked seven or eight times, progressively louder and more demanding, and when he did she lost her nerve, and stared at the floor.

He lay unmoving and looked at the ceiling and listened as the tapping grew louder and more insistent. When it became apparent that she wasn't going away, he got up and pulled on his pants and opened the door to make the tapping stop.

Kat was standing in the doorway holding a blanket and looking forlorn, green eyes dropping to stare at the floor when he met her gaze. The blanket said it all, but she asked anyway.

"Can I stay with you?"

It was a child's question and a child's shamed, frightened mutter. His first impulse was to let her in. His second was to ask her why. His third was to shut the door in her face and put an end to the whole fucking problem.

On closer inspection, she didn't appear to be bleeding or favoring either ankle. There were no marks on her arms or face to indicate that she'd been fighting. There were no laughing, demented voices in the darkness. She didn't appear to be in any danger. Why should he let her in?

Why not? Because he didn't want to have to spend the night on the fucking floor. Because he didn't want to have to deal with whatever she was dragging in here with her that made her eyes look like that. Because he didn't like sharing his personal space with crazy people, even if he knew them.

He hesitated for a few seconds, warring with himself, and then stood aside.

"Come on," he told her gently, and she clutched her blanket tighter and followed him inside.

It was the same dark, empty room that she had, but she felt safer here, and it was because of him. Kat wasn't sure why. It wasn't that she trusted him, because she didn't trust anyone, and it wasn't because he would go out of his way to protect her, because she wouldn't ask it of him. She told herself it was because there were now two of them, and those were better odds against anyone who wanted to hurt her, and left it at that.

She avoided his gaze as she settled herself into the corner of his room furthest from the door. The blanket was adequate enough to keep her warm and provide a barrier between her and the floor, and she wrapped it around herself and curled up. He watched her make herself comfortable, and she had the feeling that he wanted an explanation, a reason why she was bothering him with her request. She spoke before he could ask.

"I don't have a knife anymore," she said, her voice small but carefully matter-of-fact. "I'm... not big enough to fight."

I don't want to get hurt. I know I won't win here.

It's just for tonight.

She could tell, even before she opened her eyes; his breathing was even and regular, and when she peeked out from her blanket she could see him on the bed. It took a second of confused blinking before she realized that he did not have a blanket, and another second to understand that she was warm and comfortable because it was on her. Her face flushed, and Kat was silently grateful that he was asleep.

Quietly she stood and folded her own blanket, straightened her clothes and then crept over to his bedside. He looked cold in just the scrubs they'd given him, and she frowned and carefully draped his blanket back over him. She'd thought she was being gentle, but the movement was enough to wake him, and when he looked up at her in surprise she felt oddly sad.

She continued to sleep on the floor, and after the first day he didn't always go out of his way to give her his blanket. Instead he made a point of leaving it off when he slept. Sometimes she took it and sometimes not, and he never said anything either way. She always left with her blanket before he got up, and sometimes they spent the entire morning apart, but they always met again for the second meal of the day. There was nothing for them to do apart, and there wasn't much for them to do together, but it was better than wandering the empty halls alone. They spent several days like that, wandering through the barren library, watching the broadcasts, making careful forays into the uninhabited areas when boredom took the edge off their fear.

He tried talking to her a few times, but talking about Battleschool to Kat made him feel strangely guilty. She'd never made it into an army, and he felt like he was mocking her. He tried talking to her about his life before Battleschool, but the words wouldn't come. Any faith that he had left was far too fragile for him to share.

They split up again to shower in the evening, and every day she came a little bit later, always reluctant, always dragging her blanket as if she'd just decided to come a few moments before she'd fallen asleep.

It wasn't that she resented his silent acceptance of her weakness; no, it was her own dependence on his protection that bothered her. He never offered it, and she never accepted it, but it was there nonetheless. She stayed, and he let her. She shouldn't have stayed.

But lights out came, and as always, she stood and began the journey to his room. It felt longer each time, but she still hugged the shadows, still watched everything with a wary eye, and she was still relieved and comforted when she slipped inside.

He was waiting up for her, and that made her suddenly, irrationally furious at him for the small gesture. It made her feel like a child, like she was incapable of protecting herself, and she clenched her hands into her blanket and scowled.

"What, am I past my curfew, dad?"

For a moment he just blinked at her, and then his face darkened, and her scowl turned into a glare. "What?" he asked her, and the edges of her canines showed as she bared her teeth at him.

His brief bewilderment was rapidly replaced by anger at her ingratitude. She was betraying their tentative relationship, the tenuous certainty that he'd begun to cling to, and that made so little sense that he wanted to hurt her back.

"Fine," she hissed, and tightened her arms around the blanket she was holding. "I'll leave."

She whirled around and threw the door open, stalked out and slammed it behind her. The sound echoed down the hallway, and she kicked the metal once to feel better, pretending it was him and silently thinking it should have been herself, because she'd just ruined it. Now he wouldn't want to see her, and she was on her own, and it was her fault. Her fault.

I hate you.

When the lights came on in the morning, he went straight to the guard booth and asked to speak with the administrator. The guard on duty seemed amused by his request, but after a couple of hours a bored, irritated orderly came into the waiting area and asked what he wanted.

"I want to see my doctor."

The orderly glanced down at the chart he was carrying and the looked up, unsurprised. "You don't have a doctor yet, Terrence. It'll be a few months before they assign you one. Once you get one, you get a review every six months to see if you're ready for therapy."

He counted up the months in his head and then left without saying anything else. The orderly didn't stop him. He came back the next day and made the same request, and the guard nodded to acknowledge his request, but he didn't make any movements to call upstairs as he had yesterday. Nathan waited an hour, three hours, seven hours. The guard was replaced. The lights went out. He waited.

The lights came on, and the original guard came back and looked at him with surprise, and then picked up the phone. This time four orderlies came, including the one he'd spoken to two days ago, and there was almost no delay.

"I told you, Terrence," said the familiar orderly, almost reasonably. "You're just going to have to wait. Go on back to your room and let the guard do his job."

There was a long, long moment where they watched each other, and then Nathan made himself look away. Walking away was harder, but he did it, all the way back to his empty room.

I'm not leaving.

He thought a long time. He thought about Battleschool, and about Anjelice. He thought about Wick, briefly. He thought about Cassius and Wylie and Hawk. He thought about the battleroom and flying. He thought about his parents and the chapel and the harvest. He thought about everything he wouldn't get to see again, and subtracted it from the whole of his life and looked at the remainder.

Stone walls, armed guards and Katera Quistin.

It was now apparent to him why she'd sought him out when it was obvious she didn't want to see him. She already knew she wasn't leaving, and he was the only person she thought she knew. He wasn't going to let himself be drawn into that cycle. He wasn't going to be like her and accept his fate. He was going to leave, one way or another. He wasn't going to settle.

These were the thoughts that occupied him for the next few days as he made a purposeful exploration of the boundaries. There were seven major sections - two for the sleeping quarters, two for the bathrooms, one for the central open area where the guard station and the elevator were, one for the dining area and one for the rec room. The sleeping quarters were the hardest to explore. Most of them were occupied. He contented himself with exploring the empty ones, and made a mental list of the ones he had to skip.

He moved at a comfortable walk and took him time, and though he didn't find anything even remotely promising it made him feel more in control. He started the circuit again, going yet more slowly, looking without touching. It took him much longer, and by the time he finished almost three weeks had passed. He saw Kat every now and then, at a distance, but he tried to keep her from seeing him.

He was walking the hallway from the rec room to the main room when he heard the voices, Kat's defiant treble over a stranger's bass. His pace slowed and his breath quickened, but he stepped close enough to the entrance to look around the corner.

Kat stood against the wall, almost entirely obscured by a larger male figure. His hard was dark and unkempt, and his shoulderes looked bulky under the scrubs. He was older, maybe late twenties. Charybdis made it hard to tell. The man had Kat cornered, his arms slightly outspread, and he was saying something to her too softly for Nathan to hear. She screeched a reply and struck at his arm, but he didn't move it.

Nathan watched them, watched her bat unsuccessfully at her captor, and listened to the man say a few more words. Part of him was screaming for him to interfere, that she was in trouble and that she needed his help, but an increasingly larger segment told him he didn't have to. He could stand here and he could watch, and nothing bad would happen to him because of it...and that he was more important than anyone else here, including Katera. She didn't give him anything for his trouble over protecting her. She never had. She took and rarely offered thanks, never offered any sort of real gratitude or friendship. She didn't trust him enough for that, and for once he felt like living up to her opinion of him.

He watched her eyes get wider, wilder as the man continued to whisper at her. The tone sounded suggestive, but he didn't move any closer to hear it. The man finally reached directly for her, and Kat kicked him hard in the stomach and then ducked fast under his arm, and then she was off down the other corridor and out of sight.

The man watched her go, his hand on his stomach. He kept looking after she was out of sight, and his hand dropped below his stomach. Nathan turned away and walked back the way he'd come.

It was only a few days after she'd stomped away from Asmodeus' room and swore she wouldn't speak to him again that he appeared. The first time she saw him was in the common area, and he'd tried to talk to her, just like another man had tried before, but she'd ignored him and left. She thought that would be the end of it.

He approached her again a week later, and grabbed her arm when she made to run away, and that was when Kat began to be afraid of him. He was a big Man, a lot older than her, a lot stronger, a lot meaner, with dark eyes that watched her with an expression she didn't want to understand. He was always watching her. It had been a month since she first saw him, and now it seemed like he was everywhere, all the time, following her at a distance through the hallways and waiting for her wherever she went.

She tried to scare him away, but he was persistent and Kat had no weapon but words. They did little good. Once he cornered her when she was alone, and said nasty things to her, and she'd only managed to get away by chance. Kat didn't want to rely on chance. Every day she spent searching desperately for something to use against him, a piece of metal, a toothbrush, something she could make into a weapon to teach him to leave her alone, but there was nothing to be had.

With no weapon, she had to rely instead on being faster than he was, and on staying away from him as much as possible. Sometimes, when she was really scared, she considered asking Asmodeus for help, despite her resolution to stay away. Once, after the Man had told that she couldn't tell him no forever, she actually went to Asmodeus' room. He wasn't there. She took it as a sign that he had given up on her, and she knew it was her own fault, and she regretted it... but she didn't go back.

Until a month later, when the Man touched her.

She spent a lot of time out of her room now, sometimes hiding in the showers to avoid him, but it had been several days since she'd seem him last and Kat was exhausted. Her tired mind rationalized that perhaps he was gone, and that perhaps he would leave her alone now, for at least one time, and that was enough to make her return to her room. She just wanted one night to sleep. Tomorrow she would find someplace else to stay, and he wouldn't be able to find her, and she would be alright.

It was the sound of breathing that woke her, and then the feel of hands on her. Her eyes flew open and she screamed, but he already had a hand over her mouth. She could see his silhouette in the dark, and she remembered Rat, remembered Burr, and lashed out as hard as she could with her fists. She wouldn't let him do that.

The fight was brief but vicious, the Man using his superior strength and size against her, Kat using whatever she could to drive him away. He fell back when she punched him full in the throat, and that was all the opening she needed; in an instant she was up and out of her room, running as fast as she could, her breathing harsh and tears in her eyes as she tried to find someplace to hide.

She ran straight to Asmodeus.

Like the first time she knocked on his door, and then she pounded on it, frightened and desperate. There was no sound from inside, and she looked frantically down the dark corridor and then bowed her head, her voice shaking.

He could hear her voice pleading on the other side of the door to let her in, please let her in. The knocking continued and the voice grew more pleading and less coherent, and he laid his hand on the door and felt the vibrations travel through it. They were getting stronger, and when he finally pulled on his pants and opened the door it was jumping under her blows.

Katera was on the other side, her eyes showing white all the way around, her mouth working with the effort to communicate her need. She was babbling something about some man and that he was chasing her. The rest was unintelligible, but she was only half-dressed and previous observation explained anything that her language might have left out.

His conscience stung him immediately, though not as deeply as it might have once, and he forced himself to stand there for a few seconds and listen to her chatter before stepping aside.

"ModepleaseIhavenoplacetogopleaseletmeinplease..."

Mode. No one else called him the name he'd chosen when Corinna had promised him his freedom. Maybe he'd keep it after all.

He stood aside at last and she darted into his room, and he closed the door and leaned against it.

She paused like a frightened bird in the middle of his room, and he watched her tremble.

Mode was leaning against the closed door and Kat took one look at his impassive face and started to shiver. This wasn't like the first time, and she didn't feel safe at all, but she needed to. She wasn't sure what she wanted from him, because he'd let her in and that was all she'd asked for, but it wasn't enough, and she ran to him and buried her face against his chest.

He stiffened uncomfortably, but after a moment he tentatively looped an arm around her shoulders, and she made a choking noise and hugged him as tightly as she could. She clung to him for a long time, and he began to pet her curls, and then Kat felt safe.

"'msorry," she mumbled when she finally pulled away, rubbing the palms of her hands against her face and trying to compose herself. "He came into my room, and... and I had to fight him and then I ran away and I didn't know where to go. Why wouldn't he just leave me alone?" Her plaintive voice turned angry on the last, and she stopped shaking long enough to look up at Mode with furious eyes. "Why?"

He'd only come near to close physical contact with her once before, and that time he'd been far too disgusted by what she'd thought of him to experience any positive reaction. Now as she demanded an explanation for why someone wouldn't just leave her alone he looked at her with new eyes. Her hair was tangled, but it was a vibrant shade of red. Her eyes were still wide with fear, but almond-shaped and framed with long lashes. Her lips were pressed together in anger, but they were red with a hint of fullness. Her body was hard with muscles, but the embrace she'd inflicted had proven she was soft and warm as well.

Katera Quistin was beautiful, and he'd never even noticed. He wondered what had changed within him that let him see it now.

She looked down at the floor, and at first he was afraid that she'd seen something in his eyes that gave him away, but no, she was still talking. He did his best to shake off his unfamiliar mood and focus on what she was saying.

"I hate it here."

He nodded and then moved away from the door to the bed. He crouched and reached under it and brought out one of his soft rubber-soled shoes. He took it back over to the door and wedged it as tightly as he could under the edge of it. It wouldn't keep anyone out for very long, but it would give them some warning. He stood up and looked at her again, and became more aware that she was only wearing her institute shirt and her underclothing, and that the room was already uncomfortably cold, and that she hadn't brought her blanket with her. She'd asked for his protection and he'd accepted. Now that he'd let her in, he didn't want to tell her she had to sleep on the floor with no blanket and no clothes.

It took a moment of squirming around before she was comfortably wedged against the wall and surrounded by blanket, but when she was done she peeked out and watched him. He was pacing around the room, and she wondered if he were going to try to sleep on the floor instead. He probably didn't want to be near her. Guilt and something like disappointment filled her, and she rolled over so that her back would be to him and buried her face in the edge of the pillow.

It's my bed. She had her chance. It's cold. I don't want to sleep on the floor.

He hesitantly pried the edge of blanket away from the near side of the bed and the slipped under the covers fully clothed. He immediately turned on his side so his back was facing her and rested his head on the farthest edge of pillow. It was already warm underneath the blanket, and he closed his eyes. Her feet brushed his, but he didn't pull away or give any sign that he'd noticed, and he started to try to relax.

Then he was blinking awake and the lights were just beginning to come up, and he was warm and comfortable despite the chill in the room. He turned over onto his back, wanting to stretch the arm he'd slept on, and then immediately sat up when he encountered something that moved next to him.

Under the blanket was warm and comfortable, and she wiggled her toes to express her satisfaction before peering back out again. Mode was sitting up beside her, and he looked down as she yawned widely and then gave him a sleepy smile.

"Moooooooooorning," she yawned again, and sat up with her legs curled under her, careful to keep the blanket tucked in securely so that no cold would get in. Once she was settled, she looked up at Mode expectedly, and he eventually nodded and returned the greeting. "...good morning."

Kat rubbed at her face and tried to decide what to say next, but her stomach talked for her. It growled loudly, and she grinned sheepishly at Mode. "I'm hungry," she announced unnecessarily, and he nodded again and slipped out of bed. She scooted to the edge and then stood up herself, stretched a little, and then stepped towards the door.

"Ah... Kat?" Mode's voice was hesitant, and Kat turned around. "What?" He made a little motion toward her legs, and she frowned and then glanced down.

Oh.

"Good morning," he said after the surprise had worn off. She sat up and smiled again, a little sleepily, and he began to get uncomfortable. There wasn't anything that had happened between now and last night that should have made her this comfortable, this at home. He'd almost left her outside last night. Didn't she remember that? It was disappointing as well as disoncerting to have her so at ease all of a sudden. He'd never seen Kat at ease. She was supposed to be the freakishly alert one. Now it appeared that burden had been passed to him as well as that of protector, and he chafed under it.

"I'm hungry."

She got out of bed and stretched, and for a moment his thinking slowed a bit. It wasn't that big a deal. She'd stay in here for a little while until she felt safe again and then she'd leave. It was getting to be an old pattern. He resigned himself to a few more uncomfortable nights and left it at that.

Then she headed for the door, and he blinked. "Uh...Kat?"

She turned around, and he tried to indicate without staring that her legs were still bare. She actually looked down like she didn't know what was wrong, and then blushed.

"Maybe we should go to my room first," she mumbled, still staring at the floor.

"You think?" he asked a bit sarastically, but he followed it with a small chuckle and pulled off his shirt and handed it to her. She seemed uncertain what to do with it and started to pull it over her head, but he caught the fabric and tugged it away from her. She looked at him in confusion, and he looped the shirt about her waist, tying the arms in front like a belt. It was clumsy, but it covered her.

This brought them closer together, and he stepped back as soon as he saw the look on her face and made the connection.

"I'm hungry too," he said, and she swallowed and stared at him. "Let's go."

She let him step into the hallway before she followed, keeping him in front of her, looking over her shoulder and down the corridors. It was easier to be alert and suspicious again than to analyze why he didn't make her feel the same way everyone else did, and she glared at his back a little to remind herself that she didn't trust him.

They didn't see anyone else on the walk to her room, and when they arrived Kat moved past him and opened the door. It was empty, like all the rooms were, but it was emptier than before, and her lips drew down at the corners when she realized what was missing.

"Sonofabitch," she hissed, and stomped her foot. The Man had driven her from her room, made her beg Mode to protect her, and then he had stolen her goddamn stuff. It wasn't the loss of her blanket and trousers that infuriated her-- at least, not entirely-- but that there wasn't anything she could do about it. She kicked the side of her bed hard, glowered angrily at everything in sight, and then stomped back out into the hallway.

It was his turn to follow her now as she stalked down the corridor, cursing under her breath and glaring at anyone she saw. The orderly at the commissary took one look at her furious face and her lack of attire and didn't ask questions, and Kat managed a tiny bit of good grace, enough to thank him sullenly before she tugged them on and marched off again.

Mode had been waiting around the corner, and she didn't care why; she just untied his shirt from her waist and handed it to him. He took it without a word, and Kat braced herself for another show of gratitude and thanked him, too.

He ate breakfast with her, then lunch, and then dinner. In between meals they roamed the hallways, sat for awhile in one of the common areas, watched a few hours of the broadcasts on television. Neither said much-- Mode was just quiet, and Kat wasn't much of a conversationalist-- but it was not an uncomfortable silence.

Evening came, and with it the approach of lights-out, and Kat wasn't sure what to do anymore. Last night had been an emergency, and he had taken her in because she was in danger. Today... today, she hadn't seen the Man at all, and although she was apprehensive about returning to her own room, she couldn't very well claim that she was about to be attacked. She didn't know. And she didn't know if Mode would care.

Their silence turned awkward, then, as he walked back to his room and she followed slowly, slightly behind him. She wanted to ask and she wanted not to have to ask at all, and indecision made her hyperaware of everything. She jumped when a door closed near her, scanned the hallways suspiciously, constantly, and waited for him to turn her away.

"I... I can go to my own room," she said just as his door came into sight, before he could suggest it first. "I'm sure he's not there. I'm sure..." her confidence lost momentum then, and Kat swallowed. "I'm sure it'll be okay," she finished, in a much smaller voice. "It's okay."

Please tell me it's not. Please ask me to stay.

He didn't say anything, just shrugged and stepped into his room, and Kat was certain that he was about to shut the door in her face. Instead, he left it open, and after a moment she peered inside hesitantly. He was seated on the edge of his bed and tugging his shoes off, and before he had the chance to tell her to leave, she slid in and closed the door behind herself.

This time she jammed her own shoe against the door, and then silently crept past him and climbed into the bed. She didn't ask permission because she didn't want him to refuse it, but he didn't, and after curling herself into as small a space as she could against the wall she felt him lay down on the other side of the bed. That meant it was okay, that he was going to let her stay this time, and she finally relaxed and eventually fell asleep.

Now this was the new ritual they went through every night for the next few weeks; after eating together and wandering the halls together, they went to bed together. It was always a silent time, neither saying a word, but nothing really needed to be said. Kat would curl against the wall and Mode would lay with his back to her, and they would sleep that way, and wake that way, and that was simply how it was.

It was also an uncomfortable time for Kat, a time when she thought a lot and worried a lot and wondered if Mode were thinking or worrying, too. He was a mystery to her, and she devoted quite a bit of energy to trying to understand him, but never really got it. He gave her a place to stay without offering her protection; provided her with company, without an overt show of friendship; and didn't leave her, but never asked for anything in return. He certainly had the opportunity to ask for her favor, as she spent night after night beside him, but he never did.

If anything, that was what made her trust him. He didn't really give her anything, but he didn't take anything, either. Others had pursued her and chased her and hurt her for what she had; even James had taken her and then abandoned her. But Mode was different. Mode didn't want anything from her. It made her trust him and respect him, but it also made her want him, because he didn't want her.

It was a selfish desire that made her turn to him one night, just after they had both crawled into bed. He was laying on his back and she moved closer, curled herself against his side and looped an arm over his chest to hold him in place. He was warm and it made her feel protective, possessive, because she didn't want him to ever leave. He was hers now; she had found him and now she was going to keep him, and she wasn't ever going to let him go. It didn't matter what it took.

For the past two and a half weeks she'd been with him constantly. They ate together, they walked together and watched the pointless broadcasts together. He did what he could to continue his search for a way out, a flicker in the guard pattern or a failure of equipment that might somehow make escape possible, but he found nothing. He didn't mind that, really. He'd accepted that he was going to be there for some time, and he didn't feel a need to hurry. What he minded was that at the end of each day she crawled into his bed without a word and he had to lie beside her and wonder what he wanted.

The night she'd run into his room had been an awakening of sorts, and a few days into their new arrangement he'd acknowledged his desire. She did not acknowledge any kind of desire except to be safe from the other inmates, and that frustrated him in several ways. He thought often about the night he'd saved her from the army brats and how disgusted he'd been at her accusation and how angry he'd been that she would think something like that of him. Now that she seemed to have finally accepted that he wasn't that kind of dangerous she revelled in it, as if every day and its subsequent night was a series of tests that he came closer and closer to failing each time. She thought nothing of his presence in the room when she stripped off half her clothing before sleeping. She stood too close to him even when they were awake. She touched his hand, she brushed against him, she let her hair graze his arm as she slept. It was the unconscious disregard for her effect that frustrated him, the way she accepted the sacrifice of his own needs without curbing any of her own.

There was the other side of it as well. His frustration did not confine itself to Kat. He hated feeling out of control, and if Kat was careless with her oblivious behavior he was equally at fault for allowing himself to dwell on it. Thoughts of her came far too often, painfully detailed and frighteningly powerful thoughts that left him feeling worn out inside. When he thought of the army brats and the looks he remembered on their faces it made him feel sick to his stomach with guilt and revulsion. It made him keep to the very edge of the bed and to step away when it seemed she might step too close. It would disrupt...this, whatever this was, for her to know he was avoiding her intentionally, and so he made an effort to conceal it, but it grew more difficult as her initial caution dissolved.

He wanted something he didn't want to want, and now as she pressed against him his frustration peaked. His whole body tensed and he tightened his left hand into a fist in the dark where she couldn't see.

He said nothing, and she looked down at his face and could not read his expression. She listened again for a moment, until she was satisfied that there was nothing to threaten them, and then lay her hand on his arm. He barely moved, but she could feel his muscles tighten, and it hurt her as much as if he'd pushed her away.

If you don't want anything from me, then why do you let me stay?

She didn't have an answer to that question, but she did have a solution. He was going to have to push her away. She wouldn't let him leave her that easily, and her eyes narrowed. It was a decision that seemed entirely too simple, but Kat had done nothing but think of him ever since she'd arrived down here, and even longer before that. It was a decision that hadn't kept Jax alive, hadn't kept James with her, but she made it anyway.

"Why are you asking me?"

He sat up so his arm was free of her sharp little grasp and looked down at her. Her hair was dark against the pillow in the poor light, her eyes just a glimmer. The shadows made her expression unreadable, but he could read her body language and felt her pull away from him. That made him feel stupid and clumsy. It didn't matter how many times he tried to do the right thing, whatever the fuck that was.

She should have known, should have been better prepared for this moment, but disappointment filled her until it brimmed over into her eyes. That made it hard to see him, and she had to blink a few times to keep it inside, keep it hidden from him. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, because he didn't care, but Kat didn't want to give him anything anymore.

One look at his face told her he wasn't joking, and it felt like the air had been forced out of her lungs. She curled up in a little ball beside him, hugged her knees to her chest and tried to breathe again. He didn't say anything and neither did Kat, because there was nothing left to say.

Please. You can have whatever you want. Just please take it back.

"Let me go!" She spit the words at him, and he pulled her to him roughly and kissed her. Now, while he was angry at her and she was angry at him, it was like fighting, and somehow that made it alright. He held her arms tightly and kissed her and kissed her throat and then shoved her away before he could do more. His head was whirling, but he didn't want to be like Rat. He didn't want...he did want it. But not like that.

She was staring at him in shock, and he became aware of the scratches her nails had dug into his chest. He accepted it as his punishment and looked at her with forlorn defiance.

This was something new, this unfamiliar burn somewhere in her chest, and it stole her breath and made her shiver. It had never felt like this when James touched her. She couldn't remember feeling it any of the times that Jax had held her. She wanted to put a name to it and couldn't, didn't even know where to begin.

There was defiance now in his expression, like he was challenging her to do something. "Go," he told her, "if you want to." Kat swallowed. Her gaze swept his face, like she could find her answer there, but the only thing she knew was that she didn't want to go.

She was warm in his arms, and his hands moved from her shoulders to her waist and pulled her against him before slipping under the edge of her shirt. The skin at the small of her back was smooth and tight, and he pushed the material up impatiently as he turned them. A moment later the backs of her calves hit the edge of the bed and he pushed her into it.

There was no hurry but he was hurried, frantic, as if any moment she might push him away. He pulled her into his lap and ran his hands over her roughly through her clothing and kissed her again, a smothering kiss that she gasped into when he slipped a hand under her shirt to feel her. That put him on guard, made him wary, and he fastened his left arm tightly around her waist to keep her there and kissed her harder.

Her immediate impulse was to struggle; this was something she had long ago learned to associate with fighting, and the feeling now was much the same. She was scared and excited, all at once, and her heart was pounding loudly in her ears as he pushed her onto the bed. Then he ran his hands over her, and that wasn't like fighting at all; she gasped and tightened her arms around his neck, and he crushed her against him without ever breaking the kiss.

This was what she had pushed James to, and what she'd fought to keep from all the others, but it was different now and she couldn't understand why. She finally decided that she didn't want to know. It was enough that he was here, and that he wanted her, and she felt so viciously possessive of him that she pulled her mouth away from his and set her teeth into his throat.

He held her head to his throat with one hand and stripped her lower clothing from her with the other. It was so fast, so easy that he hardly realized what he'd done until he slid his hand along the inside of her thigh and found no material to bar his way. She let go then and tried to pull away, to see his face or to ask him to stop, and he pushed her out of his lap and onto the bed so he could lay beside her. She was still moving, whether to escape or readjust he did not know, but he held her down with his hands on her arms so he could move over her and lower his head to her chest.

Now he was like a stranger, with cold eyes and rough hands and an aggressiveness that she would not have thought him capable of. She knew, rather than felt, that she should be frightened of him; he was stronger than she was and even though she tried, she could not get loose of his grip. His hands tightened around her arms, and he held her in place beneath him, but she wasn't scared. If anything, she felt free; he was in control and it didn't matter if she fought, because he would win, and she wanted him to.

She was pulling him closer and he let her, even ground against her through the material of his institute pants. She was unfazed, crushing him to her, and he held himself away with her with one hand and closed the other tenderly around her throat.

Her eyes widened as he started to bear down, and he flexed his fingers gently to make his point. "Let go," he whispered softly, and after a moment she did. He shifted to sit against the wall and dragged her back into his lap so she faced away from him, his hand still curved around her smooth white throat. He could feel her pulse under his fingertips as he pressed himself against the small of her back, and he was almost trembling with anticipation when he slipped his free hand between her thighs.

She twisted in his lap, grinding against him, and was rewarded with a bite on her neck. She slid her hands, now free, down his sides and to the space between them. He made a noise when she touched him, and it was her turn to narrow her eyes as she tilted her head back to grin at him.

"Let go," she said just above a whisper, her voice as smooth and sure as her hands, and his arms fell nervelessly to his sides. His illusion of control shattered and vanished, and as she turned in his lap to continue to torture him he could only wrap his arms around her to hold her close, his forehead resting on her shoulder. His breath came in time with her motions, and when slid a hand under his waistband it stopped altogether.

His hands roamed over her as hers moved over him, but soon she grew tired of the lack of resistance, and slid lower to bite at his throat again. That hurt him, and he hissed, and she let go of him then to push him down on his back. She tugged his trousers off, and that woke him from his reverie; he started to move, to sit up or grab her, she didn't know, and she bared her teeth at him and sat on his stomach to hold him in place.

"Mode," she purred at him, scratching her nails down his chest, and when he grabbed her hands, she leaned over and nipped at him.

She was strong, but he was stronger and heavier, and it only took him a few seconds to wrestle her down to the bed beneath him. There was nothing between them now, nothing to shield her, but she struggled with him, fighting to keep her legs closed and then arching her back when he managed to fit himself between them. He kissed her hungrily, not caring now about who was in control or what she wanted; his inexperience complicated things at first, but his body knew what it wanted. He finally slipped his arms under her thighs to hold her steady and looked down into her furious green eyes and began to inch forward.

There wasn't pain, not like the first time, but James had always been gentle and Asmodeus was not. There wasn't the struggle for it, either; she did not have to cajole or hurt him to make him hurt her in return, and he was forceful as no one else had been. It made a growl rumble in her chest, and drew her nails sharply across his back; her legs were tight around his waist, and she rose up to meet him with every thrust he made.

He never looked away from her, and her eyes stayed locked on his strange grey gaze as he moved over her. His jaw was set, but she gasped and smiled breathlessly at him, and it only made him hurt her more. She reached up to twine her fingers through his hair and pull him down for a kiss, and when he finally brought her she cried out into his mouth over hers and sunk her claws into his shoulders.

It took a long moment for him to catch his breath, and she pressed her face against the crook of his neck and tried to decide how she felt. It was far too late for regrets, but now she could think of nothing but him, and her gaze was intent on his face when he lay down beside her and let her curl against him.