The Fateful Heart

James met her eyes and tried to make out her expression in the dark. It looked like she was delivering this one with a blank face.

He grinned and turned to walk again. Slowly.

"I value your opinion," he said with a growing smirk as his feet got moving again.

Evaline watched James turn to walk again, and she gave a crooked smile as she thought about piling on to the humor, but then decided against it.

"I'll try my best, then," she said, walking by his side again.

James grinned again at that, but the conversation died down between them, and they continued to trudge forward in the forest in the dark.

It was for the best that they keep their volume down anyway, at the risk of drawing the attention of creatures in the night, or anyone who could be tracking them.

James didn't mind the quiet between them, and as the night went on, despite their current circumstances, he felt a semblance of peace.

He brought them to a stop at the edge of the forest. It came to an abrupt sort of end - for how long, it was hard to tell in the dark - but it seemed that there was an open field ahead of them. James thought it would be best to sleep while they still had some cover from the trees so that they wouldn't stand out so much under the open night sky.

They settled down by a spindly tree, with Elliot tied to it as usual, but they decided against a fire, afraid that it might act as a beacon and make their presence known.

Perhaps it was just paranoia, but James thought it best to play it safe.

He pulled out a blanket and tossed it to Evaline, and it flopped over her shoulder.

"How about you sleep first," he suggested. "You've been out all day."

Evaline was grateful for the walk in silence. She hadn't had time the whole day to safely think through her thoughts. In the few times she had moments by herself, her mind was occupied by reeling paranoia. At least with James by her side, she felt safe to allow herself to think through other things.

They eventually come to a stop, and James suggested she sleep first. Although neither of them brought it up, it was for the best that they didn't play the ritual truth or dare game. They had too much on their mind. At least, she did.

Evaline nodded, settling down on the grass and tossing the blanket over her body. With the blanket and jacket, she was at a comfortable temperature, and it was much more comfortable than the chilly nights she put up with in the past.

Because of that and the exhaustion of today's events, she should have gone to sleep easily. But she found herself tossing and turning, unable to quell her running mind. There was still lots to think about, and even though she wanted to sleep, she couldn't.

James would've read the book were it not so dark.

He tried squinting at it in vain for a few minutes before he gave up, knowing that his eyes were too poor to make it out, and he didn't want to deal with the eye strain. He slipped the book back into the bag and decided to sit for a moment and just look up at the stars.

It was funny that he'd told Evaline all the things he might do in one night during his watch, but at the moment, he didn't feel like doing anything besides sitting.

He tried to let his mind quiet down as his eyes traced the constellations in the sky.

But he found himself distracted, as he noticed Evaline's persistent tossing and turning. He worried that going into town - despite it ending fine - left her mind a mess. James knew that running into Butch and Reed had to be beyond stressful. Especially after the events she reversed.

He looked over at her, wrapped up in the blanket.

Did she want to talk about it?

"Evaline?" he whispered.

Evaline tried one last time to sleep before giving up and turning the shift over to James instead, but turned out, she didn't need to do that. James quietly called her name, like he was trying to fully gauge if she was awake or not. She wasn't exactly elegantly tossing in her sleep like one would sometimes do when sleeping.

She sighed, admitting defeat.

"Yeah. Sorry," she said, deciding to finally sit up. She looked in his direction, but even with the moon shining down on them, she wasn't close enough to see much besides his outline.

"I can't sleep. You should sleep first instead. I'm sure I'll be able to sleep by the time you wake up."

James nodded, but then realized she probably couldn't see that.

"Are you okay?" he asked quietly.

"I'm okay," Evaline said without thinking about it, but it wasn't until after the words came out of her mouth that she realized James may have thought she couldn't sleep because she was bothered by today's events. That wasn't fully false, but it wasn't fully true either.

"Are you?" she asked, and then immediately realized the question didn't make as much sense without the same context.

"... Going to sleep?" she quickly added on in a panicked state to play this off.

James was glad Evaline couldn't see his face at the moment, because his expression was wholly unimpressed. Sometimes, it seemed like she was keeping secrets and avoiding questions with ease, and then in moments like this, her attempts to hide them were almost laughable.

Clearly, something was weighing on her mind.

"I'm fine," he said plainly. "And if I'm being honest, I probably won't be able to fall asleep for a while either."

If he was being completely honest, the moment Evaline confirmed that she'd seen Butch, he had been on edge. He didn't know if he'd be able to sleep at all, but he wasn't going to tell Evaline that. Especially after she fussed over him losing sleep a few weeks ago.

He was just going to have to try to sleep as much as he could, and he would push through whatever fatigue was to come. He knew it was inevitable.

Evaline wasn't exactly sure if her attempt to mask the question worked since James did answer it anyways, but he also admitted he couldn't sleep, so she took this as neither a loss or victory.

She looked over her shoulder and scooted back so that she'd be leaning against a nearby tree trunk. If they both couldn't sleep, then this was going to be a long night.

She wondered if wanted to talk about it.

"What's keeping you up?" she asked softly, facing his shadowed outline.

James tucked his knees up to his chest and hugged them, and looked off into the open field with a sigh.

"It's always hard to sleep," he said. "Has been ever since I started running."

He paused.

"I think having someone else around helps a little. But on days like this, I'm reminded that I'm just one mistake away from getting caught again."

His eyes flicked to Evaline, though she was still shrouded in darkness by the tree.

"I think at some point my body just decided it was better to be tired than to be dead, and at this point, I don't think that's reversible."

Evaline was giving James half her attention as her distracted mind kept running away with different thoughts, but everything seemed to screech to a halt as James said more than "Butch."

He didn't even mention Butch.

She sat up straighter against the tree, readjusting her position so that her legs were crossed.

Since traveling with James, she had gotten a little better at words of comfort. Even so, it wasn't easy. It was hard to figure out what to say that could lift up their spirits. His spirits. She wasn't sure there was anything could say that would, either. She could hear the sadness behind his even sadder words, and no amounts of "it will be okay" will change that.

Evaline silently sighed, still staring at his direction. She was glad they could only hear each other.

"You're wrong," she said, a little bluntly at first. She softened her next words. "It is reversible. It won't happen overnight, but at some point, you won't feel that way anymore."

She paused, trying to figure out what she was trying to say.

"You won't be on the run forever."

James almost wished he could see her face, but again, found himself glad she couldn't see his. He stared out into the field with a sad smile he was sure would give him away. He wondered if it would annoy her, or if she would become frustrated.

She always seemed to want him to fight. And he did. But their thoughts diverged somewhere - though he couldn't say quite where.

He also didn't think he'd be on the run forever. But he also didn't think he'd be alive for much longer either.

Maybe give it another year or two... but it would catch up to him.

"Yeah," he said in agreement. "It's not forever... it just feels like it sometimes."

Evaline sympathized for James. She couldn't help but feel sad for him, and again, she was glad he wouldn't be able to recognize her expression in the dark.

All the running must have been tiring. She knew it had been taxing for him, and in the past, she had harped on him to at least try something else besides run away. He claimed that he was trying his best, and maybe he was.

She didn't account for the mental and physical toll it must have taken him to get this far. Knowing what he has gone through now, she couldn't imagine the turmoil he felt, too.

It didn't take her that long to figure out what to say to him.

"I know this contradicts some things I've said to you, but... I think it takes a certain amount of strength to accept that you can't always win."

She paused, wondering if she should say her next thought out loud. The shrouded honesty between the two of them convinced her and won.

"I think you're brave for running away."

James felt his heart sink, like something had latched onto it and started dragging it down into his stomach. He didn't know what he'd expected her to say - he didn't even know why he'd told her that - but it hadn't been that.

He hugged his knees a little tighter, and his hands balled into fists, and he swallowed hard to bury the tension in his throat.

How was he supposed to respond to that?

He regretted bringing this up at all. He wished he'd never said anything.

"Thanks," he finally managed to whisper out, but it felt like a measly offering of gratitude, and not wholly sincere. Because he didn't agree.

Panicking, he tried to think of something else to say, but nothing came, and for once, the silence felt suffocating.