«This is outrageous! Worse! It's embarrassing, it's disgraceful, and worst of all is mostly and completely unprofessional!»

He was standing behind his desk, a large stain of ink spreading all over it, his hands behind his back, his eyes fiery with rage. He had started screaming that the portal hadn't even properly closed and had soon unhooked his hands to start gesticulating.

She had been screamed against so many times she lost count, but never like this. It was like he was taking out something buried so deep in his soul, that his roars made the walls themselves tremble. And she, who usually proudly defended herself with the same amount of screaming, this time could only fold on herself under the hail.

«Don't you imagine for a second that I hadn't heard the rumors going around about your supposed crush on me. But dignifying them with any kind of serious acknowledgment would have meant making them worthy of anyone's attention! The pesky pastime of a mass of lazy rats with nothing better to do than stain good people's reputation for some cheap laughs at our expenses!» after the first five minutes, she had started to worry he could go on without breathing for even more time. There was a vein, on the side of his head, that had swelled up so much she could see it pulsating. His face was as red as her hair, his pupils small like pinpricks. «But this! This legitimates the rumors and gossips going around! It will hurt you, it will hurt me, and it will hurt innocent people like Francesca! Because if you truly thought that River would have ever kept something like that under silence, you're even more short-sighted than I have always thought!»

She didn't interrupt. She just felt her whole body cringing and felt something burning in the depth of her stomach but fought to keep it down.

«Sleeping with the Enforcer of our worst enemies! A disgrace! An utter and complete disgrace! I would have expected such a blatant irregular behavior from any other woman, or man, in this goddamned Order but not from you! Never from you!»

He took a deep breath. Finally. He looked directly at her. And she beat herself up, again, for the umpteenth time that very morning, for ever having mistaken his eyes for River's imitation. Their depth, their expressivity, they were nothing like River's copy.

They were strange, though. Where she was sure to find only contempt and disdain, there was something else seeping through the layers of disappointment.

Hurt.

«I trusted you.» his voice was down a notch. «I trusted you to be the only one I knew not to fall in the arms of that deprived sorry excuse for a mage. That you could be the first person, the first...» his voice raised again, briefly «... that could see through his debonair act of general self-indulgence and complete selfishness. I...» he sighed, massaging the root of his nose with his fingers. «I'm tired. Banshee. This was quite the last straw.»

She was biting her lip, fighting back the urge to say something, to explain everything, to finally come clean, after all those years of silence, now that, at last, she had nothing left to lose. Really nothing. It was now or never. So she stopped fighting back. She tried to steady her voice.

«I only slept with him because he's the only person who could turn into a perfect copy o' ye.» she wetted her dry lips with her even drier tongue. He was as still as a marble statue. «And so... and so I could think... it was ye, there, with me and-»

He raised an open hand, just to order her to shut up, letting her words hang in the air between them, in the cracks of something that felt broken.

She shut up.

Maybe it was already never.

«Dismissed.» he muttered.

She opened her mouth, trying to find the words to save the situation, or at least stall it until the right words would come along. Sure as hell she didn't want to leave everything as it was. She didn't want to go away with those eyes as a last memory.

«I said, dismissed. Before I dismiss you.» he repeated, with a husky voice even more threatening than his normal screaming one. There were so many levels of disappointment, disdain and, again, hurt, she couldn't listen to it anymore.

She closed her mouth. And nodded.

She turned towards the door, walking slowly, hoping something good would come up to her, to say just on the door.

Like in the movies.

«Wait a second.»

That sentence was said with a completely different voice. In a matter of seconds, it looked like the war raging around Garaham's head had come to an end, and its byproduct had been that sentence, in that voice. Slightly trembling, unsure, a tone lower than his usual.

She turned to look at him. He was there, leaning on his fists against his desk. Those eyes still locked on her. But this time, apart from everything that was there before, there was something else. Something she couldn't define.

«What?»

«You just said... you only did this because you wanted to think it was me. So, was it just...? I don't know, a strange kink you have or...» he looked like he was suffocating on those words as he'd never done before, not even raising his eyes on her while talking. «Do you... lo... like me?» he stumbled so evidently on the word he almost choked on it. Like he was scared to say it even more than he was to hear the answer to that question.

She literally exploded.

«Are ye daft? Completely daft?» she screamed, her eyes blazing like fire. «You ask me if I like ye? Ye ask me if I like ye? How old are ye, fourteen? I don't like ye, ye dumb bureaucrat! I love ye! With the whole o' me own stupid heart!» it was done. Now, there was no coming back.

He blinked like he had been violently slapped.

«Yer a good man, ye always had me back, ye have the greatest heart I know, even if hidden under all those layers of irritability! Yer the best, the only man I could ever want. And nay, I don't care if I can never have ye, because yer married and all. Loving ye, ye idiot, simply the feeling o' loving ye, is so blissful, I would be content to love ye from a distance fer how much I'll live. Which I always reckoned wasn't so long anyway.» Garaham opened his mouth and raised his index finger, ready to intervene. «No, you listen!» He closed his mouth. «Melodramatic? Man, if it is! But true. If I could switch the whole time spent fucking your brother with one hour talking tactics and rifles with ye, ye would just have to tell me where do I have to sign!»

She had more where this came from. She had years of personal mind castles filled with scenes where she declared her love to him. Sure, they were all more romantic moments, like amidst a fight or on her deathbed, and she wasn't screaming her head off in a fit of exasperation, but softly whispering words of love, void of insults and swear words. She had so much more to say.

But she couldn't.

Because she found herself pinned against the door, with Garaham's lips closing hers.

How could she have ever mistaken River for him?

This kiss wasn't like anything perfect she had experienced the night before. It was rough and desperate, so hungry and frenzied she could barely breathe. He tasted of coffee and stress, his short beard was rough against her face, his tongue needy and irruent. She kissed him back, at the beginning taken aback, but then matching his fury. The force of two people who had waited so long, too long, to touch each other.

He broke the kiss. He could have taken advantage of the situation to caress her everywhere, to finally feel that body that he had scarcely dared to lightly touch. But since the start of that crazy moment, he had kept his hands in one place, and one only: framing her face, slightly entangled in the bush of her hair.

Catching his breath, he looked at her. Her eyes, a storm of translucent grey. Her pale complexion now of a worrying dark rosy tone, that on a normal palette would probably be a scarlet red. Her freckles sprayed around her nose and cheeks. And then the details he could have never noticed because he would have needed to be closer, as close as he now was.

The little wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, the unmistakable sign of a life of laughter, even in the face of the worst events. The scar on her brow, from ten years before. Her scent: rose, with a touch of church incense. The warmth of her breath against his face, smelling of stale alcohol and cereals. He caressed her cheeks softly with the gentle touch of his thumbs, feeling the smoothness of her skin.

They looked at each other in the eyes for the infinite space of some seconds.

Then, Banshee found herself outside the office. The door firmly closed. She remained, completely paralyzed, in front of his door for a good couple of minutes. Then, she turned and started walking, in a complete trance, along the corridor.

Inside the office, he had put both his hands against the door, as if he feared someone could enter, he kept his head lowered, and his eyes stuck to the pavement.

You're an idiot! He screamed inside, to himself. You're a damned, bloody idiot.

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Soooo the cat's wildly out of the bag y'alls. This -is- my favourite chapter of them all. And finally some personal character moments after all of that turmoil. I'd really love to hear your thoughts about all of this, because this moment here has been one of the best times we ever played.

There will definitely be a chapter about this in the "behind the scenes", one day, because it had been such a fun evening, and an unexpected one as well.

Now, we get into the last four chapters people. So, hold tight: the Concert is coming!

As always, thank you all, silent and not readers, people who comment and people who just read and appreciate our Pollos from the silence of them being readers. We hope you're still having fun with us and will for a long time.

Have the greatest weekend!
Lots of love,

Daniel
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