What the cat dragged in.

13 Deeper

The frail was anxious and had been since they'd pulled out of the driveway. Creed couldn't really blame her either. The whole thing pissed him off. With all the shit he'd done, he was the one who should have been a fugitive. She should have been...what? It had been so long since he tried to picture her as anything but his that now no images came. He just knew that she deserved better.

From the corner of his eye, he could see that she was knitting something again. He didn't give a shit what it was; he was looking for outward signs of the anxiety that permeated her scent. Her jaw wasn't clenched. Her hands didn't tremble or grasp the nasty-looking nest of needles any more tightly than usual. Her eyes were fixed on her work and every so often she'd stop to count. She might have been sitting on the couch next to him. It was perfectly ordinary and too fucking perfect.

He'd seen that kind of calm before, but only in wartime. Being under fire was one thing, you could wait it out or fight it out and you learned how to tell the difference if you lived long enough. Being under threat was something else. That shit could go on for an hour or a week or a month and there was no way to tell when it was going to end until it did. 

Guys handled it different. Some didn't sleep, some slept all the fucking time. Some parked themselves in one spot and waited for something to happen. Others couldn't take the indecision and went looking to make something happen. Then there were those who just went on about life as if there was no threat looming. Usually it meant they had already seen too much shit. Already spent so damn much time under siege and learned how to go numb to the insidious agony of it.

She started to hum along with the Vivaldi that was currently playing. Even that gave nothing away.

"Frail." 

She looked at him, a nervous little smile on her lips. "Sorry, was I humming?"

"Yeah, but it wasn't too annoying yet. You hungry?" 

She glanced at the clock before she answered. "It's nearly lunchtime."

"Not what I asked."

A little shrug, her eyes turned toward the window as if she was suddenly fascinated by the scenery that was slipping by. "It's been hours since breakfast."

He recognized the deflection, but calling her on it wasn't going to do him a damn bit of good. "We'll stop in half an hour."

"Sounds good." Another flicker of a smile.

He gripped the wheel tighter. She was doing exactly what he told her to do and watching her do it made his teeth ache.

"Frail." He waited until she looked at him. "Pretend for other people."

She blushed. "Am I that bad at it?"

"No, but I don't wanna watch you fall apart before we get to Philly."

"Philadelphia in Pennsylvania?" The surprise registered in her voice.

"Yeah. Unless they moved it and nobody told me."

"I didn't think that was exactly on the way."

"It is when you're avoiding New York State as much as possible."

"I didn't realize you were planning to..." Some of the anxiety faded. "Is that where we're spending the night?" She seemed hesitant to ask the question. Probably because of the trip to Maine.

His shoulders twitched in a little shrug. "Thought about driving straight through, but I figured there wasn't any big hurry. Got any more questions?" He made sure to add a little snarl to the end, just because she would be expecting it.