The Fateful Heart 2

Evaline felt attacked. And naturally, if you're attacked, you defend yourself.

"I don't know," she said with a heavy tired voice, not breaking eye contact. "I hardly know you."

"Exactly," James retorted, tearing his eyes to the side towards the exit of the cave, where the sands were raging.

He felt the small spark inside of him that had ignited starting to die.

He was so tired. So, so, ridiculously tired, and it carried into his voice. His voice was naturally low, but now it was sounding even lower, and coarse.

"I'm not just some... self-pitying, oversensitive liar who doesn't really like you," he muttered. He felt his mind drifting again like it had been present for all but two minutes, and now it was fading. Was he even making sense? What did he just say?

"I mean I do like you," he said quickly, correcting himself, though he wasn't sure he had to. The words spilled out quickly, and his mind felt practically numb.

"Or I like the you I know of you - what I know of you, I mean, though I don't really know you. Yet. Much at all, yet."

James grimaced at his own mess of a sentence, and he pinched his eyes shut. He tilted his head back and groaned.

"You just confuse me. Sometimes I can't tell if you're trying to manipulate me or if that's just how you are. Without realizing. I might not understand everything about you but I'm not stupid. I can tell when you're... trying to..."

He started to let out a sigh, but pain shot through his ribs, and he winced. He gave up on his sentence and growled in the back of his throat.

Evaline wasn't sure what happened. One second, it seemed like she was fighting James, and the next, it was like he was apologizing without saying he was sorry.

It did slowly dawn on her that she was, well, fighting James, and for no good reason other than she was tired, hungry, annoyed, and uncomfortably vulnerable. She had cooly told him that she was glad he was losing his patience, but she didn't actually mean that. She wasn't even sure if he truly was losing his patience since it seemed that he was still being patient with her.

She really was an awful friend, but she already knew that. James was just starting to realize it himself now.

Evaline sighed, breathing away the anxiety. Oddly enough, being low energy and hungry had dulled her perpetual anxiety and nerves. It was giving her a different type of clear mind. One that focused on survival.

"I don't think you like me," she said bluntly, tearing her own eyes off him and looking off to the side. "I think you only like the idea of me. But I could understand why. You don't like being alone and seek companionship."

James wasn’t able to move from his stiff, pained position, and his face was stuck in an uncomfortable wince as he started speaking.

“Isn’t that just what all relationships are? You only ever know your idea of the person. And even after ten years of knowing someone, you still discover new things. But you never live in their head all the time. No one can really be known. Not like that. Just—“

His face tightened, and he tried taking in a slow breath, but it didn’t help. It felt like there was a pocket of stabbing pain in his ribs that wouldn’t go away.

“I’ve known you for two months. I don’t know you, know you, but who does? All friend-friendships are the same. Built on that simple... foundation. The fact that maybe I like what I barely know so far and that’s enough.”

Evaline leaned her head back on the wall, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath as James started rambling on what it meant to have a friend. At least, that was what it sounded like to her. Him giving lessons on friendship, as if he had friends himself.

She might have said those words out loud if he wasn't trying to be patient with her now.

"What do you want me to say to you, James?" she responded impatiently after a heavy sigh, blankly staring up at the wall.

Evaline's question brought James to a tipping point. Teetering on the edge of exasperated exhaustion, he felt like he was at a loss. He was trying. He really was trying, even though he could hardly remember the last words to leave his mouth. His head felt like it was so loud like the sandstorm was in his mind too, making it impossible to see in front of him.

His face remained twisted up in discomfort.

"I don't know," he said, defeated. "I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. I'm just so tired, and I feel like I can't think straight anymore."

James's words made Evaline want to loudly groan from frustration.

This was getting to be so irritating. Clearly, they both were tired. Why use their little energy to talk and argue? And for what? He didn't even know what he was talking about.

Evaline took another deep breath in and out, trying to put a lid on the overflowing irritation.

"Do you need sleep?" she asked curtly, looking out at the sandstorm brewing outside. It was only midday.

"Rest, if you're so tired you can't think straight."

"Rest, rest, rest," James muttered. "Yeah, I try to rest. You have no idea how much I wish I could just sleep, but I can't." He stopped himself before cursing, almost out of habit, even though he didn't know if Evaline knew the word he was about to use. Instead, he just looked out to the sand-storm with glazed eyes.

He'd thought that after a week, the pain would become more bearable. But the constant travel, the constant physical labor, the movement, the stress... he felt like he was breaking.

Evaline didn't deserve to be saddled with him. He wondered if sometimes she wished she left him for dead. Sometimes he wished she had.

He sighed.

"This time I really am sorry. Just forget it."

Evaline shouldn't be surprised: of course James fell back to his self-pitying habit again. It was pathetic and embarrassing to watch.

She wanted to bang her head on the wall to release the pent-up anger and annoyance, but she had no energy to do so.

She took it out on her words instead.

"Quit feeling sorry for yourself," she snapped. "It's weak and gets you nowhere. We all have to sleep sometime, so just do it."

He knew it. He knew it. James knew this would happen. He could feel the all-too-familiar wave of suffocating numbness wash over him again, like an old friend, welcoming him home.

Carter had always been right, hadn't he? The moment he showed weakness, nobody would think anything of him. He'd be nothing, nothing at all. It was better just to shove it down, push it aside, and quit feeling sorry for himself. Sadness and pain never got him anywhere. Nowhere except here, as a wanted man, with nothing left to live for but a horse and a woman from another world, who would leave him eventually, as he deserved. And then it would just be him against the world.

But he couldn't say that, could he? He couldn't feel anything. It wasn't allowed. It wasn't acceptable.

James wasn't aware of the profound sadness leaking through his eyes, overtaking his whole expression as he gazed dazedly out of the cave.

He didn't even have to heart to fight her on it.

"Okay," he said, barely audible.

Evaline was glad to hear James agree, but seeing him look so sad and defeated only seemed to add more fuel to the fire.

"That's it, then?" she said. "Just like that, you're going to do it?"

Whether she meant sleep or stop with the self-pity, she'll let James decide.

"Yes," he answered simply, not even fully sure what he was agreeing to. It was easier to just agree, now. He should never have fought in the first place. Never should've voiced his opinion. Never should've said a word. No one ever wanted to hear it, even when they said they did.

"Okay, then," Evaline said, turning so her body faced away from him as she leaned against the prickly, uneven rock wall.

It felt wrong to just end this conversation here, but she didn't let it bother her. She was too tired to think or worry about James.

And frankly, right now, she didn't care.

Evaline's words entered his head and started playing over, and over, and over again. The cool tone, the disappointment, and the unveiled annoyance wrapped like a thread around his mind, and the tension grew tighter and tighter and tighter.

His head was starting to throb. He didn't know if it was because of the hunger, his wounds, his exhaustion, his sleep deprivation, or how much her words stung. And she hadn't even said that much. Arguably, he'd been even worse. He'd let his tongue run away without him and he knew he would regret it like he always did.

The rushing winds hissed in his ears, and he closed his eyes, deciding to give in to the mindless half-awake state his body was dragging him towards.

With the last amount of effort he could muster, he turned to the side and laid down against the wall, with his back on the sandy floor.

Maybe if he was lucky, a scorpion would crawl into his ear, and he would die peacefully in his sleep.

He didn't know how much time had passed once he'd closed his eyes, but it felt like an eternity and a constant test of his endurance. In whatever amount of time had passed, he neither slept nor had a tangible passing thought. There was only emptiness.

Evaline didn't know how much time had passed, but a thick, tense silence seemed to suffocate the room. Usually, James defused a brewing argument before it could get too far, and she couldn't stay mad at him very long. But this time, it was different. She let his words and her own words swirl in her mind, repeating over and over, mixed with anger and frustration and annoyance.

She was leaning on the rocky wall, back facing the wall of the cave. Her knees hugged her chest, and she stared into the darkness of the cave as she heard the howling wind from the sandstorm behind her. James had been lying on the ground very still for a while now, presumably asleep.

As the minutes ticked by, Evaline let the thoughts from the conversation subside, and her mind wandered through the events of their time together in Nye. Although they had a few tense nights—with this one being the worst—they were the outliers. She had to remember that there were many more good moments than bad ones.

It was hard to think straight with an exhausted mind and body, but she knew James had always been there for her. He helped her from day one when she was a stranger to him, and she knew she wouldn't have done the same if she were in his shoes. He trusted her with Elliot, his resources, her words when she warned about Butch.

And he was right: she hadn't ever really opened up about herself. She may have, once or twice since the beginning. But James was trying more than she was.

Not because of the note, but because he wanted to deepen their trust and friendship.

There was a reason Evaline didn't want to share anything about herself, but that reason was locked away in her mind somewhere. She wondered if it also was because she was afraid opening up would mean she obeyed the note, and she'd go back to Earth, and she'd eventually die.

The silence was so thick, it was suffocating. Or maybe it was the guilt trickling in.

She didn't want to, but she knew she had to.

Had to try.

"Are you awake?" she asked in a hushed tone, so quiet that she wasn't even sure if James could hear it.