For the first time in her life, she was utterly at a loss--to leave, trailing the shreds of her dignity behind her, or to stay--to find out more about this place she had no idea existed, to find out more about the people who worked here...

	Perhaps if the boy--the /prostitute/--had acted in a way that she could understand, perhaps if he had gotten angry at her for lashing out when he was just doing his job, perhaps if he hadn't just tilted his head and looked at her with blue eyes tinted with fire and said "I'm a whore" in that quietly matter of fact voice... Perhaps then, she would have left, returned the key with relief to the lady at the front door, and gotten on with her life, as pointless and boring as it seemed. 

	Perhaps.

	As it was now, though, she didn't know what to do--caught in a situation that a bright smile or innocent look could not extricate her from. So, when he politely indicated the chair with a questioning look, obviously inviting her to take her seat again, to her own surprise... she did. He poured her another cup of tea, then knelt and began picking up the razor-sharp shards of the cup she had broken earlier with his bare hands. 

	She sipped at her tea again, letting it leech the adrenaline and aftereffects of her earlier excitement away, as she watched the other work. He didn't look up, or even seem to notice her at all, as though the mundane task was the most important thing in the world to him, as he gathered the pieces carelessly, seeming indifferent to the sharpness of each fragment.

	Still, she watched, continuing to wonder what she was doing, continuing to wonder if she should help, continuing to wonder what she should say.

	With break in the hypnotic patten he had set, he flinched slightly, and the hint of a wince passed across his face--he had, inevitably, cut himself on the edge of a particularly large shard of glass. Two drops of blood splashed silently onto the offending shard--red against stark white...

	It was difficult to tell from her angle, but the cut seemed to be deep--It was long, at least, a straight slash running from the tip of his index finger to nearly its base. It was bleeding freely, too, crimson running down pale skin as he tilted his hand to avoid letting blood stain the carpet.

	Apart from his initial reaction, however, it was as though nothing had happened--he continued picking up the broken pieces of porcelain with his undamaged hand, placing each shard on the table in a neat pile. 

	No pain, nothing registering on that beautiful, unique face, or those eyes with dimmed fire...

	Somehow, that hurt. 

	That indifference hurt, just like his matter-of-factness had hurt, and she didn't quite know why, confronted with this person so profoundly different from anybody she had ever known. A person who didn't want anything from her--except perhaps, to be left alone. 

	That hurt, and perhaps it was that pain that caused her to slip off her chair and take his bloodied hand in her own, ignoring his look of inquiry as he stopped work and glanced up. She closed her eyes, sought that place within herself, and /called/...

	White-blue fire coalesced at her command, exactly as it had that time six years ago--so long ago--uncoiling like a snake, to twine around both their hands, feeling cool where it brushed bare skin, rather than warm--a kiss of moonlight and the memories of better days gone past.

	The cut stopped bleeding, broken flesh knitted and smoothed over in the matter of seconds, until all that was left was a thin white scar under a veneer of half-dried blood. The gift of healing, one that could save so many, and yet was commanded to help none--the gift so rare, so highly prized, that she was never supposed to have... 

	The fire faded, and she opened her eyes--he was looking at her, surprise replacing curiosity, as he brought his hand up and flexed it experimentally. 

	"Thank you," he murmured, standing up and offering her a hand with a smile, one that lit the spark in his eyes and gave him a mischievous, /alive/ look and made his previous smile seem like a travesty. She took his hand--it was warm, a little larger than hers, but just as slender--