Rush set her down and it was on a bed, thank god, but it was a little too familiar. As she let herself sink into the familiar softness of maroon comforters, she glanced around the room. It looked the same as when she'd left it, before it had exploded.

"Did we time travel?" Mer asked in jest.

"Meredith, such things are purely fiction." As usual, Rush didn't get it, and she chuckled. Even that rocked pain through her chest ,and wheezing, she fell onto the bed with a whine. Existence hurt.

It didn't take Rush long to come and sit by her side on the bed. The man was staying away from her though, and she frowned at his distance. Reaching like the horrible spoiled property she was, she groaned as Rush noticed her outstretched hands but remained where he was, out of reach.

"Did you bore of me?" he asked. It was a strange question, considering her state. Like she'd had time to get bored of him. Between watching him get skewered and fearing he'd died, to being pressed against Damien's ravenous hunger and then fighting for her life, she wasn't sure which could actually be classified as boring.

Still, Rush looked downtrodden. The man, even though he feared her, had always been within inches of her in a dangerously forward way. The only time he hadn't been, was when he'd expected her to blow up his limbs. Right now though, certainly he could feel that she had no magic to harm him with, and it wasn't like they hadn't laid naked together for an extended period of time.

"Did I do something wrong?" Mer asked, her arms falling onto the bed limp.

The last she'd seen of him, he'd been bleeding on the ground and begging her to run. All she wanted was to hold him and know that he was alive and real, but he was so far away. Rush didn't answer her, and she grumbled in annoyance.

"I didn't bore of you, Rush. I was worried sick about you, but also fighting for my life the whole time. It didn't give me idle time to reconsider our relationship, if that's what you're worried about."

Why would he be worried about her attachment to him anyway? From what she'd gathered, while he was warming to her, it wasn't as if he was so attached to her that he couldn't bear to be without her–like she was, now, desperately wanting to feel his cool skin against her face.

"You liked it when he kissed you," Rush said, his expression so placid it was clear he was suppressing his emotional reaction.

"Kissed me?" Mer actually had to figure out what Rush was talking about.

It took her a moment with her throbbing migraine to remember Damien kissing her on the forehead and rubbing his face against hers. At the time, she had been ecstatic that her father was alive. Happy to be alive as well, she'd loved the cool mellow vibration of the dark energy against her skin.

"Are you jealous?" Mer asked incredulously as she lay on the bed, barely able to move.

"Please, I don't feel such emotions. I just wanted to know if you had bored of your fascination with me." Rush snapped it out like a grade-schooler accused of liking girls.

Rush was totally jealous. But why? It wasn't as if he loved her, right?

"Lamenting I don't love you?" Mer teased easily, and Rush slid a hand over his eyes with another one of his long, ragged sighs. It really did sound like she'd actually struck him when he did so.

"You like Damien Arc," Rush's voice was an aggravated growl as he revealed how upset he was.

"Not... like I like you." Mer chose her words carefully when speaking to him. A hair trigger was what the man was on right now, and as his property, there wasn't exactly any recourse if he snapped at her.

"Why?" Lightening his anger to dull agitation, he simmered down, and Mer couldn't help but smile.

Rush had actually been worried that she'd become attached to another vampire. Even if he didn't want to admit that he'd grown attached to her, it was apparent. That made her happy, though also worried, as he was simmering just out of her reach.

"Well, he doesn't call me property," Mer said in annoyance, and Rush let out a slow whistle of a sigh.

"What did you want me to say in front of the mages?" Rush was by her in an instant, and while she'd been craving this closeness, the way he prowled over her made her nervous. "That I was afraid?" Rush lowered himself gently onto her and clutched her to him, hiding his eyes from her sight as he almost crushed her under him. "That seeing you there, in danger, helpless, and with me unable to protect you, that I had felt things I didn't want to? That when they said you were dead, it stopped my heart for a moment as I contemplated the possibility? What words did you want me to use in front of the mages to make myself look like a weak man who had been captured by something he was supposed to own?"

Rush at least had the decency to roll onto his side so that he wasn't damaging her from his weight, but he was doing so equally from the tight grasp of his arms around her. The lull of dark energy hummed next to her migraine as he clutched her head to his chest, and it dulled the pain as it seeped into her. Pressing her to his chest, Rush quaked, likely in restraint to keep himself from ripping her in half. With how calm Rush was all the time, these emotions flooding into him must be difficult and painful.

"When I saw Damien Arc standing over my body and looking at you, I thought that would be the end of both of us. You can't begin to fathom how terrified I was at facing my end and knowing that I had taken you with me. Then when you opened your eyes, you were ecstatic to see the goddamn man, and I was an afterthought. How am I supposed to feel about that, Meredith?"

"I was happy to see both of you. Damien just thinks less about what others think of him, so I imagine he scooped me into his arms faster." Mer tried to calm him, but he still wouldn't let her look up to his face and see what he was feeling.

"Why were you happy to see him?" There was empty silence as she considered what to say. Telling Rush that he was her father would last all of three minutes, before she had to repeat it again from the Haze spell. Instead, she used normal logic.

"Rush, Damien and Neil turned on Vincent when he attacked the mage complex. The man was badly injured, lost his whole arm, and risked his life to protect the place. I can't vouch for Damien's reasoning, but right before I passed out, I thought Vincent was going to kill him. You can't blame me for being relieved that he wasn't dead."

Rush allowed her a moment to look into his dim forest eyes, and she smiled, sliding her hands up his skin. His face was still cool from not having directly touched her skin, and it was pleasant feeling as it warmed to her.

"I was happy, yes, but not like I'm happy now. When I saw you sitting there, fuming or not, I was overwhelmed with happiness that you were alive. I had feared you wouldn't survive the huge hole in your stomach, and was agonized when I was torn away from you. Touching you like this, being close to you, even being grumped at by you, it makes me very happy. I'm not bored of you, and I love you."

Rush let out a hot breath on her neck as he slid his nose up it and goosebumps ran up and down her spine. Shiva had revived her again, so the previous holes from Damien wouldn't be there, but she doubted she had much blood to give him in her condition. Just resting on her skin, he didn't bite her, but pulled her tighter again.

"I... don't love you. I felt things in the desperation of the moment, but that was all it was, Meredith." Rush lied poorly about his feelings.

"You are so in denial." Mer chuckled, her face pressed against his silk shirt again. "I'm practically flawless, you know? Except for being finicky, picky, and a little too powerful for my own good."

Rush chuckled against her neck. "Well, at least you'll be weak for a bit. I can be overbearingly powerful and you can feel like a normal mage for once." Rush let her go, lifting himself on one arm to lean over her.

"More shackles then?" Mer said with an annoyed glare, but it twisted the smile up his face.

"No. No, shackles. Those are for mages who have magic to cast. You're like an empty husk. I can barely feel your presence. It's disconcerting really. Are you all right?" Concern was still an interesting thing on Rush, asked with a normal tone as if he was asking what color her eyes were, but she understood that it was genuine.

"Shiva said I'll be on empty for as long as a few weeks. I sort of used all my magic up, but I hear I killed Vincent, so I'm officially a vampire slayer. Fear me." The last she said with sarcasm, but Rush never seemed to catch on to that. His eyebrows tilted in a strange way and then flattened.

"You killed him?" Rush asked, still not believing her, and she shoved his chest lightly. It caused horrible splinters to go up her wrists because he was unmovable. Any pressure on anything caused pain still, so pushing a rock had been a bad idea.

"You'd have been proud of me. I managed to use a homing spell and appear right in front of Damien. I surprised Vincent and likely would have died if Caelan hadn't managed to stun him just then. It gave me the millisecond I needed to shove my blade of light from Shiva right into his skull."

"Resourcefulness in a mage doesn't usually make me proud, Meredith. It makes me wary," Rush said, lying on his back next to her and holding her relaxed against his chest. "Maybe one day you'll come for me, and I won't see it coming."

"I'm not going to kill you, Rush," Meredith whined, and he shrugged, pulling the comforter over them. It was the first time they would both be under the covers wearing shirts. Usually Rush opted to lose his, and more often than not, she ended up mostly naked.

"You say that, but right now, you're weak, partially dependent upon my protection, and growing. Once you realize what sort of creature I am, and fully understand mages and vampires, I worry you'll pull away. I'm not one to let go, so I imagine it will be in force."

"Come on, Rush. You can't really think that?" Mer prodded him, but his flat expression molded into his eyes closing, and she glared at the sun drifting in through the windows. Curse his feasible excuse for getting out of this conversation. Well, they had plenty of time to speak of it when she wasn't also barely conscious.

With the coursing of the dark energy over her, her migraine was dulled, his form against her was warm and comfortable, and she was more than welcoming some more sleep. How long would she feel this weak?

~~~~~~~~~

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