Sanctuary

[Emily Littleton] The fire fell away, receded with a whuff and a rush of fresher air. Cooler air. It was all the Orphan could do to keep from falling to her knees, sobbing, shaken, for a moment. The air around them reverberated with the Intensity of Owen's magic; with the temerity of the Man's threat, his magic, his wrongness; with the thin, thready Reverence of Emily's own.

There was a rush, and before she could find herself falling, Emily pushed toward the child. There is a wellspring deeper than even Faith, buried within them all; it is sometimes all that separates them from death's doorstep. The rain fell down around them, as Emily and Owen pulled Tony free, pulled him away from the husk of a woman he had known as Mother, averted his eyes from the cold, blue fingers (still curled, holding fast) of his baby Sister than peeked out from the sopping pink blanket.

She can't remember, now, what it was they said to one another. Just the warmth of the boy's tears as they fell against her shoulder while she carried him. (And he's not heavy...) Just the smooth of his hair beneath her fingers as she cradled his head. The slow, steady slip of so many meaningless words as she let her voice, and her heartbeat, and her own warmth form his shelter against the rainy night and its torments and demons.

This child would fear the scent of rain-logged mud, of foliage crushed under foot; his guts would wrench to wretch at the sight of algae-choked water. It would linger long after the sharp pang of loss had dulled, numbed.

She sat with him in the sanctuary at St James while Owen spoke with the Father in hushed tones. While the sodden bundle disappeared from view. She watched after them for a long while, while the quiet music streamed into the sanctuary and the crucifix on the wall loomed, larger than life.

She lit a votive at the little display. Whispered something to His ears alone. (For the nameless.) Lit another. (For the innocent.) And a third. (For the one[s] left behind.)

In time this night will be nothing more than snippets, moments of too sharp clarity interspersed with smeared and hazy memories. She will remember the too cold hallway, and how it's window is always standing open. The way Owen's door swung open to let them into the apartment. Stepping out of her shoes beside the door, carrying the boy in (a heavy, warm weight) with aching arms. No complaints.

Wiping the dirt from his face and hands, soothing the bruise on his cheek, coaxing him to take the cup of juice into his tiny hands and drink something (please, Tony...). Slipping him under the covers of Owen's bed.

Emily would remember far more than she wanted to. She sat on the bed beside the boy, running her fingertips through his hair and humming quietly to him. It was a foreign melody, one she'd learned by heart about his age. Her voice was untrained but mellifluent, worn and wearied but enough.

[Owen Page] There is a price to pay.

[Lord, make me an instrument of your peace]

For all that he had acted out of a desire to protect those he cared for, those weaker than himself, those already tormented by dark forces, by the very world around them, those who were only just yet beginning to open their eyes to the world around them -- for all that he had acted out of heroism, some desire to stop what was seen as wrong, as a form of devilry in man's clothing, there were still consequences. And they were these, as if the hand that delivered Owen the sheer strength and tenacity of will to shape the universe around him, around the brilliant, glowing force in his hand also had the power to remind him --

You are so very human too, my child.

[where there is hatred]

As the fire extinguishes itself, as the unknown Man vanishes, the Chorister known as Owen Page drops to his knees and braces his weight forward on his palms; violently trembling. There is something like an explosion of sensitive energies flowing outward from his near-exhausted form, wet and muddied against the ground. What was once a bare whiff of intensity has suddenly re-made itself stronger, more powerful.

And it settles around the young man's shoulders this night like a cloak; heavy and foreboding.

It is enough to drive the young traumatized boy further against the Apprentice's skin, to turn his face from the sight of his Angel as if terrified that pure force would come after him next, that force that rolled off Owen's powerful shoulders as they made decisions; absent, wearied decisions about what was to be done, now.

What came next?

[where there is injury]

Next came St James' [Sanctuary] and a sodden parcel carried in a wet young man's arms, but this was nothing divine and nothing blessed. This was darkness, and despair. Owen cannot recall where he found the strength in his strung-out muscles to dig a grave for the infant girl-child named Emma. He cannot recall all that he spoke to Father Benedict about but that conclusions were drawn about the fate of the boy, Tony, and phone-calls made, some long-distance and some not so far at all.

It was in the stillness of the after that the true extent of what had occurred will reach them. Up until now, even at the Chorister's apartment there had been things to do, every second had been occupied, there had not been time for tears, or hysteria or the realization on the Initiate's behalf that he had allowed an innocent woman to go to her death because he refused to play a madman's game with him.

He was not considering this yet, but the ideas pressed against the back of his skull like a dull drumbeat; he felt his skin drawn tight, too tight over his features as he made the final arrangements for a safe place for the little boy to recover -- if it was ever to be had, after what he had witnessed.

And -- as he finally turned and made his way to where Emily hummed a lullaby to the child he delivered the final piece of comfort he could to the boy, even now, as he shrank away from the dark-eyed Angel's touch. He pressed, gently, against the boy's mind, and drew a curtain between the night's events and the present moment; casting soothing, pleasant emptiness in its place so that when his eyes drooped shut over lashes, his tears would dry and his dreams would be of nothing more harmful than ever they were before.

It was the last thing Owen had the strength for; and as he removed his palm from the boy's head, his eyes met Emily's.

"He'll sleep, now." It was a ragged whisper, a threadbare noise.

[not so much seek to be consoled but to console]

[Emily Littleton] The boy is young, his features till rounded and softened by childhood, his lashes long and casting dark shadows on his chubby cheeks. Sleep claims him, and he exhales a heavy, languid breath that leaves the little body lax. The lines of tension, of fear, of loss smooth and fade away.

It is not so for the Chorister and the Orphan.

(where there is doubt)

Emily's hand rests on the blanket above the boy's shoulder. The press of Owen's resonance beats against her skin, it echoes inside her head as if she were nothing more than an instrument, a hollowed out drum answering out to his cadence.

It is unlikely that she would have looked away from the child, had she not heard the weariness in Owen's voice. For there is shame there (I should not have waited...), and pain; there is also anger and outrage; fear; loss. These things are named, known, marked and kept hidden far away from the boy that needed their help, rattling around like beads in that empty drum for a head of hers. They are shunted aside at the threadbare whisper, set down so that her eyes can lift to find his.

(to be loved, as to love)

It is Emily, tonight, that reaches out to lay a hand on Owen's arm. The backs of her fingers are cold (shock, numb) but she's been rubbing her palms against the blanket, against her jeans, whenever she has a chance. To keep them warm, to gentle their touch.

"Thank you," she says, her own voice hoarse and heavy from the nearly constant whispers, consolations, murmurs. She says it as if Owen has done something for her, not just for the boy, in this moment. But if he searches her eyes for explanation, there are blessed few cues there to help him.

Emily looked away, back to the boy in Owen's bed. Her hand falls away from the Chorister's arm, so that she can tuck a lock of hair behind Tony's ear. Emily leaned over to kiss him temple gently, and pulled away. She was careful to slip off the bed without disturbing him, to take a quiet step away without her footfalls growing too clumsy or heavy.

(for it is in giving that we receive)

"Do you think he'll be alright?" she asked, before they took their leave of the room, heavy as it was with whispers and grief (and Hope). There is hope still, or the vestiges of it, threaded through that too-thin voice. There is Faith, or something that speaks faintly to it.

[Owen Page] Owen's apartment, small and cramped as it is does not offer so much in the way of privacy, or solitude. It was a place intended only for one and so the bedroom, which was really not a room at all but an alcove carved into place with two extended lengths of wall is not excused from their quiet conversation, but their voices are muffled, the further they draw from it. Owen had not spoken aloud in response to Emily's gratitude, but that perhaps, was not unusual.

What was unusual was the level of perceptible feeling that crosses his features as he lowers himself gingerly, as if he'd taken a physical beating and not simply a mental one, when she asks after the boy. The Chorister has no simple answer for her, and no single reply that is going to set her mind at ease; Emily can read that as clear as day in the blood-shot blue eyes that meet her own from beneath a hand, settled against his brow, elbow propped on the arm of the old sofa.

"That'll depend on him," he says huskily, his voice a dry sliver of its usual smoother timbre. "His strength of will, his resilience. He lasted this long, so who knows." A beat, Owen raises his face to examine her dirty countenance, he does not speak for a moment; but the thrum of his resonance penetrates the air unflinchingly; without remorse.

"How are you?"

[Emily Littleton] She has forgotten that she is dirty, that the mud and muck from the boy's clothes now clings to her own. Emily has forgotten that the curls that usually frame her face have flattened, stuck themselves to her skin and began to peel away again as they dried. She has lost touch, entirely with the little details. She knows her socks are damp, and that she leaves tiny, fleeting whispers of paw-prints behind her as she moves across the wood floors. They dry almost immediately; it is not a problem worth tending to just now.

How are you? he asks, and Emily offers the ghost of a smile. It tugs the corner of her mouth up, just barely more than a twitch, a lifts a little of the veil from behind her empty (hollowed [hallowed]) eyes.

There is little warmth to it.
There is even less answer.

He is aching, sitting on the couch with his hand shading his eyes. She is quietly restless. It is not immediately apparent, but the effort of keeping calm, keeping still, keeping steady for the boy has been heavy and now that it is lifted, now that he is safe and sleeping, there is nothing to tether her.

She crosses to the kitchen, opens and closes cupboards quietly until she finds two glasses. These are filled with tap water, which she lets run until it is cold against the inside of her wrist before filling the glasses. She brings them back with her to the living room, offers one to Owen. Wraps long fingers around the other.

Holds it, without drinking, for a long while.

"I'm okay," she says. The words are level. There is no sudden flicker-peak of emotion to color them, no giving of things away. There is a reason for this, one that becomes apparent as she turns the question around to him. "Are you?"

Softly. Worried. There is a slight furrow to her brow, now. (Every emotion thinned, shadowed, fainter and harder to read [withdrawn]).

When she can no longer find a reason to stand, Emily settles herself on the floor beside the couch. She leans her back against it, so her shoulder rests near Owen's knee, her arm lies parallel to his leg. So he cannot see her face (her eyes), and she cannot read into his. It is a small mercy, softened by the comfort of their closeness.

[Owen Page] He's watching her as she gives him that ghost of a smile and turns to fetch two glasses of water. Ordinarily, Owen's gaze is felt, but the pressure of it is bearable. Right now, the pressure is enough to make Emily's skin crawl, to make her feel, were she not already aware of many of the unnatural things in the world that she were being watched by some entity, some malevolent spirit.

He is not quite that.

His punishment from on high to balance out the forces he had invoked has not been that bad, not this time.
He was lucky. They both were, in different ways. Helen, on the other hand, had not been. She had done to her death knowing that she'd drowned her daughter -- and for the life of him, Owen cannot escape the torment that it brings him, considering what he knows of himself; of what he had wrought in his darker hours.

When Emily returns Owen is sitting forward with his arms braced on his knees, his palms flat against his scalp, fingers buried in the still-damp spikes of hair. He had not returned to reclaim his basketball, his jersey. For all he knew they were both still sitting in Lincoln Park, sodden and awaiting him. For all he knew they'd been stolen by some passing thief, some homeless passerby.

He knows she's lying and he knows he should call her out on it, but for the thunder of his own thoughts, pushing clear that reasoning; instinct is far closer to the surface at present. Instinct, and a former master itching beneath his skin, clawing its way free, back into his throat, drying it, demanding satisfaction that water will not bring. She settles herself near to him, and though she cannot glimpse his face, she can guess at the expression that must twist it as he speaks, roughly.

"No, I'm not okay. I want a drink." It's admittance; confession, and it seems appropriate that his chain is hanging clear over his shirt; glinting in the dark. "I want to drink until I can't remember what it feels like to hold that baby in my arms, so tiny and helpless and... I want to stop remembering how angry I felt in that moment, staring at that man." He trembles, she can feel it.

It vibrates into his words; and like some horrific tidal-wave that had been unleashed, he finds he cannot stop the words rushing out, once he begins. "I wanted to kill him, Emily. I wanted him dead, not breathing. What kind of a person dos that make me?" The anger is turning inward, inverting back onto himself. "I got Helen killed tonight because I was so sure I could handle everything, I nearly got you burned alive, for God's sake and all I can think about now is that I want to forget and that I'm fucking envious that she gets to die, and not live with the knowledge that she killed someone she loved."

There's a long, long silence, broken only by Owen's breathing, rattling in and out.

His voice breaks a little, struggles with itself. "So no, I'm not that okay."

[Emily Littleton] ((*sigh*))
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 4, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
to Emily Littleton

[Emily Littleton] His resonance and his grief flood over her, dragging her down until she can hardly breathe, pulling at things within her that Emily has put away for not-now and not-here. Like a bloodstone around their necks, sorrow; like a dirge in their veins. It closes over her skin, fills her mouth, shuts out her eyes -- intense and overwhelming -- but she does not pull away.

The child knew better, he shied away. Most anyone would. But the Orphan (for that is still what she is [that may ever be all that she is]), is a steady shoulder pressed against his leg. (Not enough, not nearly enough.) And as hard as his resonance pushes against her, hers pushes back Unrelentingly. It is softer, only an echo, a faint repeat; it is steady.

At some point she sets her untouched water aside, tucked behind the leg of the couch where it cannot be accidentally overturned. She lifts herself up, slides on to the couch beside him. Rather than pulling away, Emily slides an arm around him and pulls him close. (Protective [certain]).

Too often it is Owen that comforts her, his strong arms around her shoulders, his surety lent to steady her. It may surprise him to find the same solace in the thin and newly-Awakened Orphan. What she cannot match in physical strength is echoed in a (fierce) tenacity and unquestioning (unquestionable) loyalty. And Owen is shown no less compassion than the child sleeping in his bed, given no less succor or open-armed good will.

He trembles. Her arms tighten somewhat.

"You didn't get anyone killed," she says, and her voice is low and striving for steady. It is thinned and hoarse, still, but solid. Immovable. "You saved that little boy's life, Owen Page. And the woman was gone, she was tortured and gone before we even got there."

Her voice breaks, Emily stumbles over the words and has to resettle them against her tongue.

"You are not responsible for what he did -- to that woman, to the little girl, or to that boy. Especially not to me. And if we had to do it all over again, God forbid we'd have to -- but you'd save him just the same, Owen," and you'd let me burn. She doesn't say the rest of it. She doesn't need to. The Innocent always, always comes first.

She is not okay either. But her arms hold him tightly, so he cannot feel her own tremors. And her breathing is so carefully metered, so he cannot feel it rattle in her chest. And she is so certain of what she says, because there is no room for hesitation or for quavering.

If she gets only one things right tonight, it must be this: to be there for a friend. (Brother. Warder. Friend. [Not yet, but maybe some day...])

[Owen Page] [WP: Owen, don't do anything stupid.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 5, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Owen Page] That's the thing of it, however.

Put the man in the same situation over again and the likelihood is he would have made the same decision again. It had been instantaneous for him, the refusal once Emily had been put in danger to sacrifice her for the better good. He had not even considered another option -- there had been no weighing of what ifs or how abouts. There had simply been flat refusal and a declaration that he would not give up either of them -- but he would give up his own soul in exchange.

It's worth thinking about, how readily Owen was willing to allow his own form, his own Avatar be twisted and blighted were it to spare that of the others, even the Sleepers, present.

It is not even honestly an act of heroism on the young man's behalf, it seems more a complete lack of caring about the shell he inhabits. Were he to die, it could be fairly reasoned, especially right now as he sits, trembling and broken down by events and his own demons, rushing to the fore, blinding him with his own despair, his own mistakes, that Owen wouldn't mind it so terribly much. He would be freed, in his own estimation, of the shackles of making amends.

His face is pressed into the Orphan's shoulder, she can feel the heat of his skin, his breath against her. There are no tears, though his voice had cracked [that impassive demeanor he kept so solid and impenetrable] he does not give leave for that much lack of control. He was not a small boy to dissolve into tears at the first traumatic thing he witnessed -- God knew he'd stood witness to worse -- he had only ever truly sobbed once, and that had been over the grave of his sister.

Alone.
In the dark.

Now, he lets the tremors lesson, he allows himself if not total abandonment in the euphoria of Emily's arms the comfort of wrapping his arms around her smaller frame and keeping her close to him; they both smell like the rain, like washed away grime and the faint aftertaste of magics, twining together. His resonance beats at her, her own rushes against it as if she were the shoreline to the tidal-wave of his sudden surge of grief.

They remain like this for some undefined length of time. Owen has no idea how long it takes, but that eventually he can breathe regularly, that he can loosen his iron-clad grip on the girl's body, that he is not threatening to, by the sheer force of his desire to forget, about to plunge past his own strictly enforced barriers into a situation that could lead them both to a state of ruin. He pulls back, dark bruises ringing beneath his eyes; he looks like the recently reanimated, a waxy corpse given life.

It's too much, too intimate for a moment, he cannot reach words, cannot grasp and form coherence, then Tony sighs in the bed across the way, turns over in his slumber and it shatters the intimacy of grief, of shared trauma. "Isn't this meant to go the other way," he says, turning his body from her, scrubbing hands over his face. "Aren't I meant to comfort you?"

[Emily Littleton] "You have," she reminds him, gently now that her hands are her own to mind and she is gathering them into her own lap. Now they are idle, with no one to comfort and nothing to cling to and Emily finds herself drawing a deep breath, trying not to fidget. Keeping still is harder than keeping quiet.

"You will." There's the faintest tinge of her usually wry smile underlying the words, and a certainty -- that much seems unshaken, resolute.

What he could not see, or hear, when he was held tightly in Emily's arms was the silent flow of tears that started. A dampness she could not hold back, all the emotions she refused to voice finding exodus in this soundless transgression. Her eyes are bright with them, her cheeks damp, but there is no rush of deep emotion to marry to them.

Owen's grief welled up, threaten to overtake them both; Emily's pulls her down, away from the surface, swallows her whole. There is tenderness in how she looks to him, now, but that too is quickly pulled away and kept quiet.

Emily shifts on the couch, presses her back into the corner made by the back and the arm, draws her legs up so she can wrap an arm around her legs. Rests her chin on her knees. It makes her seem so much smaller, folded up like a toy, like a nothing little slip of a thing.

There is something she wants to say, but holds back. Motivated by fear, or by friendship. It's kept close to her teeth, held down by her tongue. Instead she offers:

"You're my friend. You can't scare me off that easily."

A small smile. It almost touches her dark eyes.

[Owen Page] She might hold it back, but that doesn't mean that it will stay that way, stay within her never to be released. She knows him better than that, better than to expect that he'll just let it go, that he was going to drop whatever it is that she's not telling him for fear of making things worse [if that was even possible at this point]. She shifts back, he sits forward and scrubs his palms over his face.

He lowers them when he realizes they still smell faintly of the fountain water; of decaying infants and the dirt he'd buried a baby in tonight. For a beat, the Chorister can only look at them, and flex his fingers back and forth as if testing to see if the smell were physical as well, as if the length of time he held that child in his arms for had some how infected him, infected all that he was.

He twists, then, turns to face her.

"Am I?" Your friend. The eyes drop away, a strange shyness creeps over him, words become weighted down, harder to form in an instant. He closes his eyes, sees the flashburn of jeering men and the moan of a soul being forced to look on what another had made her do. Owen's eyes open again, and he studies Emily for a long while, quietly, then:

"Tell me." What you're thinking, what you're holding back; the gaze is clear, but within the tired midnight blue eyes is a need she hasn't seen before. The need to comfort, as he had been comforted.

The need to discover solace, and perhaps give it in return.

[Emily Littleton] ((I really gotta sleep this off... like, nao. [WP] ))
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 3 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] What had been a small smile trembles when he challenges her. (Am I? Your friend.) It erodes the thin foundation to which she clung so fastidiously, so very tightly. It pushed her closer to the chasm of deep, dark fears and deeper, darker feelings.

Emily looks down and away, to where the dull light in the room casts broad and fuzzy shadows on the floor. Unlike Owen, she does not close her eyes. The silent tears stream down her cheeks and she hugs her knees to her chest.

She can feel the weight of his gaze as it rakes over her, pulls free the thin deceptions (I'm okay [I will be okay]) that she has woven to keep herself steady, lays her bare. He studies her, and the press of that interest is almost more unbearable than his resonance...

Beating against her.

Tell me, he says, and she flinches as if he'd reached out to strike her. It is an instinctual reaction to the grief, and the fear, and the longing that he is treading too near. Something in the Orphan cannot imagine that he would push that close, prod that plainly, without judgment or chastisment.

Emily shakes her head, No. She hunches her shoulders up and curls tighter in on herself. Her breath rattles in her chest, comes in great swallows of air that she cannot measure or mete enough to keep them from turning to sobs.

When she closes her eyes, she's greeted with the jeering face of the nameless Man, the leap and crackle of flames still near enough in memory to feel and touch and smell against her skin. The jeering, nameless faces of Men, the warmth wet smell of river mud, the concussive memory of closed fists...

Beating against her.

"I..."

"I'm such a stupid, stupid bitch," she says, pushing the words out in a harsh whisper, self-scathing and intolerant. There's pain and fear behind them and no gentleness for her own weaknesses.

"I shouldn't have--" she doesn't finish the thought; there are so many ways to finish the thought. They all end in her hands balling into fists, in her swallowing down a lump in her throat. "And it's not even that, I mean, he would have... He would have killed me, back there, and that's, that's not even it."

She reached up and slid her hand around to press against the back of her neck. Her tongue felt heavy and her eyelids like sand. Emily was having trouble separating six years ago from now, having trouble with the feelings of impotence and helplessness which had resurfaced with a vengence.

"If he'd taken you," she said, but couldn't look over at Owen. "Owen if he'd..." her voice trembles, falls away, falls in on itself. "I couldn't have... he wouldn't have just let us go. I couldn't have done anything about it. Not a fucking thing. All of us, we'd all have died there...."

There was no veil between them now. Emily could not hold back the rush of things-unsaid and things-unwanted. She laid her head down on her upturned knees and cried. She was too spent to pray, not worthy of reaching out to God or to the Chorister (friend?) just an arm's span away.

She was alone, again. (Orphaned.)

[Owen Page] It doesn't make it better when he calls on the very tools that had spared [some, but not all] of them earlier tonight. Emily calls herself a bitch, calls herself stupid and Owen's lips part to protest but nothing more than something that might have formed a vowel, or the beginnings of Emily, no emerge from between them.

He makes some noise instead, and his fingers, the fingers that feel clumsy and heavy tonight close around the chain, slide right down to where the cross had been pressed, hot to his skin. He holds to it, and the overwhelming stifle that is his resonance this night seeps into the room again; like some invisible roll of storm-clouds growing over the horizon, they build, it builds but it is not enough; there is strain showing on the Initiate's face, sweat beading in his hairline as he tries to call on a higher power [god make me an instrument] but cannot sustain it.

It is too much.
Too soon after.

The pressure eases after a few seconds and Emily is still crying.

"No," it's a whisper, but it's there, and it demands so much with its utterance, there's a vehemence behind it that is enough to startle, to shock. He slides closer to her now, urges her to fold against him, to fold into his arms and take some measure of comfort as she had just done to him. Strange that he now felt calmer, like he had had his own faith put to the test a few moments ago and weathered the storm, arrived, beaten and shaken on the other side.

A hand strokes through her hair, a voice whispers down to her as she is pressed close enough to hear the constant vibrato of his heart beneath his shirt. "You are none of those things. You helped me tonight, you saved that little boy's life."

He tightens his hold on her a little, slides a hand down to link their fingers.

This close, this strung out and exhausted, there is no more room for his shame, or his fear of being too close to her, of allowing her past his defenses. For right now, she is well beyond them and he cannot muster the strength to resist.

He needs her.
She needs to hear this.

"I couldn't have done it without you."

[Emily Littleton] His resonance pushes across her skin again, sluices down her curved back and sloughs off any last pretentions she held on to. Its intensity makes it hard(er) to breathe, stills and stiffles the ragged sounds of her breathing. It forces an awareness of something other than her own tumult.

It is comforting in its own, unrelenting way. Beating against the vestiges of her composure; it's all Owen's, it speaks to his nearness and his solemnity, his Faith and surety. It leaves her well appraised of precisely where she stands; it pushes; she pushes, and it answers back.

It's steady, in a moment where nothing else seems to be.

A rock.
Safe harbor.
Strong arms to enfold, to hold.

Emily rests her head on his shoulder, lets the tattoo of his heartbeat underscore each word that he says. Even without her expanded senses, she is intimately aware of him. Of the marks and memories that the night has left on his skin, his person, of its effects on her as well. Of the fragile, needy place they have both fallen into.

The sobbing abates. She no longer shudders against him, but the warm flow of tears does not stay just yet. His fingers find hers and Emily's curl around them. They are colder than they should be, a chill brought on by the night and by the shock and withdrawal.

He needs her.
She needs him.

"Don't go..." she says, softly. As if it's too much to ask, even here, even in a hushed whisper against the skin of his shoulder. "Don't just, just up and leave..." (me behind [like the others have]).

Any other night, she would have been too careful to speak it. Any other night, Emily would have left that insecurity and fear as just a shadow on her mind. It wouldn't have come out in a pleading whisper. Her fingers tight on his (please), but this time she does not start to pull away before he can answer.

Unveiled, unsettled, unguarded -- it is too much, too soon after, and it leaves her raw (but quieting [calming]).

[Owen Page] He's all but pulled her onto his lap in the quest to provide some semblance of comfort for what she [for what they both] have been through tonight. One arm looped around her shoulders tightens in response to her words [don't go] as if to reflect the meaning behind them [stay with me]. He turns his face, his lips barely brushing against the crown of her head.

"I'm not going to."

It's a vow as much as anything he's said to her is, a pledge spoken aloud that means a great deal more coming as it does on the heels of such an event. He rubs her arm absently, a gesture intended to soothe and then the movement lessens, stills and it, and he simply become as she needs them to be right now.

They become a safe harbor.
A fixed point to which she can navigate herself to.

Don't just up and leave.
"I wouldn't."

He murmurs, and the Chorister's voice is thick, drowsy with exhaustion that he has been striving to fight off for hours. She can feel the slackening of his grasp on her, the way his breathing slows, becomes a steady rise and fall. She can sense the stillness that means he's sleeping; his brow is unlined for once, years of worry and regret stripped away by the vulnerability of slumber.

Owen sleeps, and holds on to her, as long as it takes.