Chapter Text
She’s sitting with her equipment in the ruin of Moat Cailin, Nymeria at her feet, when she looks up to see a couple of undergraduates are trudging past the trenches, and she tries not to suck her teeth at them. Tries not to look too irritated at their slowness and chattering, thinking about how much money they’re costing as they just mope around, when one steps directly on the stones of one of the few remaining courses of the curtain wall, inside of one of the trenches, and she just fucking snaps.
“Don’t step inside the godsdamned trench!” she shouts at him. They’ve all been told to obey this one rule above all others, and she's tried to drill it into their thick skulls every morning as they start work, but she swears they’re all too busy thinking about fucking in their tents or getting drunk in the pub, because it happens at least once a day. This one looks up, completely terrified, and frozen solid where he stands. And his boot is still on the fucking feature. She huffs, and wanders over.
“See that?” she points to the staked out area, where nails have been hammered into the ground, and strings have been pulled taut.
“Any time you see strings across nails, that’s marking a trench, so don’t step inside of it. Keep outside of it. Got it?” He frowns, eighteen years old, pimply and unsure.
Then she points to a row of black basalt stones hanging together in a line. Right where his fucking boot still hasn’t moved.
“See that?” He's looking at his shoe, not the stones. “Not your boot! The stones you’re stepping on! Move off of them! Look at the flag! See the flag?! Any time you see a flagged feature, don't step near it! Get out of there!” He’s finally moving, and she’s hopping into the trench. The rules are different for her. She's the Director, and she’s looking to see what the damage is.
“This is archaeology. See a few stones sitting all in a line? It looks suspicious, but it might be nothing. Depending on what's around it, you might want to investigate further. But if you see stones with something sticking them together? That’s definitely not natural. That's archaeological.” She points out the crumbling substance between the fragile stones his boot had stood on, and then continues. “We’re in the area of the curtain wall, and we’re trying to find its edges, yeah? That might be part of its edge.” She looks up, and thinks that finally the dim light bulb is starting to glow in his brain.
Only minimally though, she assesses, but decides not to skin him alive for her dog’s dinner.
She tries to get him to envisage the curtain wall that once defended the interior of the stronghold of the ancient First Men, and he starts to stare at her like she’s insane as she points at the nearly invisible lines of stones that have been flagged up in a few other places as she shoots looks back at him. She’s gesturing and pointing at the various areas in the ground where they’ve been surveying and sinking test pits. She’s talking about the ruins all around them. He just can’t picture it all the way she can, and she can see the hazy light in his eyes fade to black as his mind goes wandering off to other things. The scrawny, starving little mouse on the rusted wheel of his imagination has just keeled over and fucking died. Not only does he not seem to realise it, he can't fucking begin to care less. Why is he even here? Must be for a minimal course credit. She trails off as she gives up, knowing it’s a lost cause.
“Right, um… maybe just… go help Jojen and Meera over at the spoil heap. Go help them do some sieving. Might get some small finds, and pick up some things we’ve missed,” she says finally. It’s unlikely to yield very much, but it still needs to be done. She's standing up and brushing her filthy hands against her combat trousers. They’re covered with more stains than just dirt, and her waistcoat and pockets are filled with various bits of flotsam and jetsam, including polybags, the odd hairpin, hair ties, a few nails, a plumb bob and line, some string, and a few precious retractable permanent markers with finds labels taped over them with the words ‘DIE THIEF DIE’ on one side and ‘GENDRY WATERS’ on the other. Her trowel lives in a waistcoat pocket, its handle worn with much use. The rest of her kit lives in her Stanley utility bag, which she’s left by Nymeria.
His face brightens like she’s given him the best task ever, and she tries not to wince at his enthusiasm. She watches as he bumbles away. At least he avoids the other lines of potential features they’ve marked out with flags, and doesn’t step into anyone else’s trench as he scuttles over to the heap. A few shouts and warnings from busy diggers likely stopped him, though. She snorts, shaking her head. The little buns she’s wound and pinned to the sides of her head cast little shadows on the ground.
Not everyone’s born a bucket bitch, she thinks ruefully.
She rubs at her eyes, tired from the late nights pouring over section reports, and looks down at Nymeria, who’s wandered over for a scratch and a rub at her ears. ‘Good dig dog,’ she thinks fondly.
“A girl has become a teacher,” says a voice behind her, and she almost jumps back onto the feature of the fragile curtain wall.
“Fuck!” she cries out, flailing forward to spin a bit, only to land on the toes of her steelies, balancing like a cat before coming back on her heels. She only just misses falling on her face.
She looks up in shock. Keeps looking up until she meets the honey brown eyes of a tall man with shoulder-length red hair mixed with a patch of white (poliosis, her brother’s dermatologist wife Jeyne told her, when she asked her oh so innocently a few years ago what it was called when she had patches of white hair, like one of those big patches of pure white hair she’d seen on a dark-haired baby? She had felt a little guilty as Jeyne had patiently explain that oh no, that was poliosis, not at all like the ageing process, oh sweetheart, it was perfectly natural for some women to stop producing melanin at a young age, and it doesn’t you any less attractive, and she didn’t need to dye her hair if she didn’t want to, and gods then she had heard Robb howling with incredulous laughter, and she had quickly thanked Jeyne and hung up before she had fully absorbed how that laughter actually hurt a bit, because she actually did have some grey hair, and even a few strands of white, for all that she was only twenty-five, and she had found she actually really liked them, because the effect shimmered in her dark brown hair, and made her think of Nymeria, and the pelts of the direwolves of old).
He has snuck up behind her like a cat. He smirks like one too, as always, and that makes her want to snarl back like a wolf, as ever.
“You….you asshole! How long were you watching?” she demands. It’s the first words she’s said to him in over two years, and it’s not what she expected to say, what she’d sometimes play-acted in her head, late at night when she couldn’t bear to think of how they parted, but there it is. Too late to take it back, and then she decides the words are just fine. Perfect. She really, really doesn’t like being watched. Especially not by this man. It’s way too much like being judged, and she’s done with that. Especially by this man.
She can’t stop him from looking at her though. And boy, does he ever take his time, the total bastard. His eyes are on her body, moving so slowly, taking in her dusty navy shirt and waistcoat with its many pockets, her dirty grey combat trousers, and her steel-toed safety boots. She feels dirty and small, which is ridiculous, because he's an archaeologist too, and knows how it goes. He smirks at the little swirls of hair on the sides of her head, and she glares. She likes her little buns. She can stuff or pull out pens and pencils and nails from them when she’s trowelling, and not pause to dig around in her pockets. She wonders suddenly if her hair looks like a bird’s nest, but rules her face. She will not check, she will not check, she will not check. Damn him!
Then he makes that move with his shoulders, somehow combining nonchalance and an elegant elongation of his broad shoulders and sleek limbs, simultaneously taking in the busy dig around him. He’s like a big damned cat, and she wants to scratch him and bite him to see what will happen.
“A lovely girl commands her army,” he says as he walks. “A man comes to observe.”
She cannot discern if what he sees meets with his approval. She also can’t decide if she wants his approval. She carefully moves herself out of the trench, and walks towards her kit bag. He comes with her, but his response is so entirely without a care in the world that she can have only two choices: to respond with anger, or pretend she doesn’t care either. Is there a third way? Yes: sarcasm. A fourth? Of course: wit. A fifth?
This is how it has always been with him. He has always pressed her to open her mind to all the possibilities. To stretch, to expand, and to explore within herself the maze of options that lives like a ever-twisting, ever-turning labyrinth within her mind. And so, reflexively, in his presence, she feels herself doing so again now. And she finds she makes a decision on a fifth way.
“I am always learning,” she says, surprising him with total and complete honesty. She looks back at him, and sees how her response brings his eyes back to her face, from where it had been elsewhere. He is assessing her. He inclines his head, accepting her response. From one teacher to another. That’s completely new, and she suppresses a shiver.
He looks at her feet, acknowledges Nymeria, but does not touch her. She has snuck up slightly closer, but also pretends to ignore him. Her performance lacks conviction. He wormed her way into her heart years ago in the slyest of ways: with food, attention, unfailing gentleness, and alarming aloofness. The more he ignored her, the more she wanted to know what he had in his pockets: what was the good smelly dried food thing?
Answer: lots and lots of dried venison. Sometimes. Not always. But often enough. Now? Maybe.
Nymeria is angry that the Red and White Man has been gone for a long, long time. She is angry that he forgot her, and stopped bringing her the good smelly dried food thing, the thing that the Girl does not give her nearly often enough.
Nymeria loved the good smelly dried food thing, but she also loved how happy the Girl was when she was with the Red and White Man. The Girl had smelled more like a wild, happy wolf when she came back from time with the Red and White Man. Ripe and full, ready to mate, like she had finally chosen her mate, and Nymeria had rejoiced. Had been overjoyed with the Girl to accept him, because the Red and White Man had shown himself to be strong and wise, capable of giving them both good food and happiness. The Girl had been offered many potential mates, but none were like the Red and White Man. None made the Girl groom and fuss over her fur or fur coverings the same way. None made the Girl fret over food offerings or hunting patterns when they went to the city to eat in the place where the Fat Boy made delicious food that the Girl called hot pies. Nymeria salivates at the thought of a hot pie but is still confused that the Fat Boy is also a hot pie but not one she was allowed eat. The Red and White Man would slip chunks of hot pie to her when the Girl was not watching, and she would lick his Man paws until all of it was gone. He was delicious, and Nymeria had nibbled gently on him, enjoying the salt of him, knowing that he was a strong mate for the Girl.
And then he had disappeared, and the Girl had wept for what felt like eternity. There was no more good smelly dried food thing. The taste of hot pie was not as satisfying. And the Girl had curled into a ball like a lost puppy, forlorn and alone, howling in on herself as though her very soul had been rent into two.
Nymeria snarls. The Red and White Man does not move closer. She lets him know that he is not forgiven. The Girl had wept and called out for her mate, had begged in her sleep for him not to go, but he had, and so he is not forgiven. She had held on to Nymeria’s neck, had cried into it, and had howled. No, he is not forgiven.
She moves carefully to keep her nose away from the smell of the Red and White Man and his pocket as the two make their Man Talk, but the treacherous wind shifts and brings the scent of the good smelly dried food thing. The many generations of direwolf in her tell her that the Red and White Man has definitely brought her some as a gift. Her ears prick up.
Oh, but he’s so difficult! He won’t just give it to her. She has to come to him, and let him decide to give it to her. He never asks her to do anything for it, to do what the Girl calls training, but everything is still on his terms. He always demands her patience, like a true alpha dog or wolf. Nymeria huffs, trying to ignore the call of the good smelly dried food thing.
But the pocket…the pocket! She salivates at the thought of the pocket.
She is not allowed to tear it apart to see what is inside and take it for herself. She tried that once, and the Red and White Man ate the good smelly dried food thing all by himself, and did not give her even a single tiny bite. It chastised her, being treated like a naughty pup, but she had accepted it. Somewhere in her bones she had known that since he had brought it, the good smelly dried food thing was his kill to share as his right.
But he had made the Girl cry….he had abandoned his mate.
She growls very slightly, and the Girl looks at her curiously. “Nymeria?” she says, rubbing the base of her ears very gently, but she shakes her great head. She’s not angry at the Girl. She’s annoyed at herself, for she wants to hunt, to tear out the good smelly dried food thing out of the pocket for herself. She wants to kill the Red and White Man’s control. She wants to stalk the prey, bite and hold onto the haunches, bring it down, rip out the throat, find the organs, the heart and the liver, and then feast, feast, feast! It would be so much better than the good smelly dried food thing, she knows it in her bones….
She’s panting hard now. The Girl looks at her, then takes out her collapsible water bowl, pours in some water, and sets it down for her. She drinks greedily.
The Girl and the Red and White Man are discussing things about stone and river, rock and soil. She remembers how they talked all the time, and does not understand why they stopped. The heat between them is still there. Why do they not mate? She thinks the noises indicates readiness. She examines how they sway in the air between them. Not too close, not too far away. The Red and White Man sometimes inclines his head, sometimes tosses it back or tilts. See? That’s a bow! He wants you, Girl! Nymeria chuffs, and then tilts her head in surprise as the Girl does not nuzzle his mouth in return. She watches as the Girl sticks her tongue out at him. She snorts. The Red and White Man should be tasting her scent in the air, not the other way around. Or tucking his face into her crotch, to see that she is ready. These two are completely hopeless.
She doesn’t understand Man. Heat still rises between the Girl’s legs, every month, and the Girl sometimes offers herself to the Bull Boy, but she never seems to be happy afterwards. And no pups have ever come from the matings. Maybe the Bull Boy does not knot her. Maybe the Red and White Man would. He would do it right, she thinks. Tie her properly, and then Man pups would come.
Maybe then the Girl would be happy? Nymeria doesn’t know anything about pups, and she’s never seen the Girl with Man pups, but she knows that the Girl misses the Red and White Man, and maybe she would like his Man pups. And she knows the Bull Boy does not tie to her, because he leaves almost immediately after they mate. And then the Girl always washes in the hateful bath place, the dreaded walled off water place that Nymeria hates more than anywhere else in the house, so she knows that the Bull Boy must not be the Girl’s mate, for why would she do something so hateful if she enjoyed mating with him? Would she not want the scent of her mate all over her? Nymeria doesn't know much about mating, but she thinks she would want the scent of her mate everywhere rather than take a hateful bath.
Nymeria considers all of these things as she smells the good smelly dried food thing in the wind again. She whines ever so quietly. The Red and White Man hears, but pretends he does not. The Girl hears, and sighs. It is unseemly, Nymeria knows it, and she also knows that the Girl has given her the good smelly dried food thing sometimes, but it is not the same. Not the same at all. The White and Red Man has something else that makes it taste better? His Man paws again, maybe? She really likes licking them too. When he shares his kill, he lets her lick them as much as she wants, and she likes that so, so much. He really is delicious.
She has never licked the Bull Boy. He tosses her scraps sometimes, but she has never taken anything directly from him. He smells of hot metal. Her ears go flat at the thought. She does not want to lick him.
She moves forward at last, deciding that the Red and White Man has been punished enough for now for leaving her. She has not yet even begun to punish him for abandoning his mate. She will consider further how to exact retribution. For now, her eyes become big as a pup's as she moves up to him, and she lets them grow pitiful as she looks up at him, but he does not look at her.
Foolish Man. She is clever, she is beautiful, and she can smell the good smelly dried food thing!
She huffs and pushes her great head under his hand, which he has not moved an inch towards her body. She nuzzles gently, although she is still angry, and there is wildness in her blood. She wants to take and take, but she is the cleverest girl in the whole wide world, so now she’s going to burrow surreptitiously at his pocket, just to check that all of this pup behaviour is worth it, but the Red and White Man moves away so she cannot.
The Girl sees a hint of his smile, and that’s enough of that.
“Nymeria, to me,” the Girl says, sharply. Nymeria turns her head away, pretending she does not hear. “To me,” the Girl repeats, irritated. Nymeria has developed selective deafness. The Red and White Man reaches into the pocket and gives her the good smelly dried food thing, and she devours it all. She licks his Man paw, just once, and then obediently returns to the Girl. She turns back to look at him, and his eyebrow lifts. Then Nymeria leans hard against the Girl, turns in a circle, and lays down at her feet. Her back is to him.
Message received.
Nymeria is no traitor, and he is not forgiven.
“Why are you here, Professor?”
His face is unreadable. She learned long ago never to try to play cards with him. Once, very early in her studies with him, she dared him to play strip poker with her friends, just a crowd of other doctoral students from the University of Oldtown, and his features had suddenly become wild and fierce with a hunger that had lit his eyes like lightning across the dark Northern sky. She’d seen it, the gods knew that she had. And then those eyes had been shuttered as fast as Nan closing the windows and exclaiming, “Oh child, you’ll catch your death of cold!” He had graciously but firmly declined.
“Does a man need a reason to visit a lovely girl on her dig?”
“Of course not,” she says tightly. Her viva, triumphantly completed, had signalled the end of their relationship as Supervisor and PhD student. Flushed with victory, she had drunkenly reached for his hand at her celebratory drinks in the pub, thinking of lightning all those years ago, feeling like they had travelled back to the Dawn of Days.
She was aching to see it crackle across her skin. She wanted to drown in a storm of his making, and so she pulled gently at his hand, not knowing how to tug him across to her. Not knowing what she was doing, only knowing that there was a pull in him, and it corresponded somewhere to a pull in her. There was a fire somewhere in her belly, somewhere lower, and in the shadow of the pub, where he held a drink and she held hers, she was sure no one could see her pale hand find his light brown one. No one could see her as she traced her thumb against the underside of his palm. She had bit her lip, staring into his golden brown eyes, and felt her entire body tremble as though being struck by lightning. A full body shiver that had nothing to do with the cold or the alcohol coursing through her veins.
And his visage had become entirely motionless. The emotion had drained until he was a blank slate. His long, elegantly tapered fingers had pulled away. His warm, brown eyes with their hints of gold, not unlike the heady whisky she had chased down with Gendry and Jon, looked as hard as brass tacks. She had stared into those golden brown eyes and had flushed bright red, and felt in that moment every single year of time that separated them.
She had recalled in that instant every piece of significant writing he had ever published, his breakthrough studies on dragons and Old Valyria, the possible connections with the First Men, and every research milestone that set him apart from her and the rest of the newest crop of baby academics. His professor’s chair sat like a throne so high above her, and she was just…her. She had never felt so cowed.
Her brain was rapidly sobering, and she felt herself screaming inside. ‘Have I really read all those late night study sessions with him so wrong? All those evenings discussing the First Men and the Children of the Forest, pouring over the earliest academic musings about them? And what about those days when we talked about his beloved Old Valyria, and he started teaching me how to read and speak Valyrian? How those words fell from his tongue, and I wanted him so badly I would have punched my knuckles through a brick wall if it meant getting to his mouth?’
He had been so patient as she butchered the accent, like a new born foal learning to walk. The side of his mouth lifted up in that sexy glint of a smile as she had growled in impatience at herself. She had lived for the moments when she finally released a sentence at him and heard it pour off her tongue like syrup. A raw pleasure would dawn in his face, his eyebrows would lift, and something, she swore to the Mother, something would spark. It was beautiful enough to rival the harvest moon on a clear night, and he would say, “Again, lovely girl. Again.” And she would grin, elated with her victory, and she would do it again. For him. She would hold it all in her heart, commit the cadence to her memory, and do it again, for him.
He stared hard at her, then looked away, into the crowd of academics laughing and drinking around them. She took in his handsome best friend, an expert in ancient weaponry, who was telling a dirty joke to the tiny female professor, who was a palynologist and expert in ancient poisons, psychotropics, perfumes, and dyes. She switched over to a lively discussion between the Head and the Reader of the department, the benevolent kindness in the face of the former contrasting harshly against the severe sternness of the latter. A dozen of her doctoral candidate friends were laughing and joking in the nooks and tables nearby, and she was so grateful they all seemed unaware of what was happening between her and her professor. She looked back at him, and found her professor’s gaze upon her, hot and piercing. He had apparently been looking at her for a while as she scanned the crowd.
‘Do you understand what you could have just done to me, to yourself?’ she thought his honeyed brown eyes were saying to her, as he bored his gaze into her. Utter shame defeated her. He could lose his job, his entire career, with the merest hint of impropriety. The validity of her thesis could be put into question with just a whisper of sexual interaction between them. It might be four long years of research for her, but it was over twenty-five years for him. And it would all be gone in an instant. For her. A second daughter of an old House from the North that no one in the South gave two shits about. Tears gathered in her eyes. How could she be so stupid? So selfish?
She turned to flee, a tear falling despite her attempt to rule her face, but suddenly his hand had shot out, grabbing the back of her neck in a forceful gesture that took her breath away. She straightened and stiffened, meeting his gaze. The look of intensity on his eyes she could never forget. And…was he staring at her lips? A bead of moisture had gathered above his upper lip, surely just a remnant of his ale. Heat flooded her body, despite the terror and shame still coursing through her body. She was confused, and her dark brows knitted together as she watched as he licked his mouth, then hardened his gaze again.
“A lovely girl has more liquid courage than sense,” he murmured, as he looked into her eyes, then back to her lips.
“Jaqen, I…I’m so sorry,” she stammered. He held her neck tight for a moment more, squeezing it, and she felt herself become unbelievably wet. Flooded with sensation. Her nipples tightened. She squirmed a little. His grip hardened, just for a millisecond. It hurt. It felt divine.
Then he abruptly released her, and then he was leaving. She stood stunned. Had he really touched her? Or was it just a fever dream? She stood shaking, unable to move as she watched him empty his glass, leave it on the table, pick up his grey peacoat, his satchel, and march out the door of the raucous pub.
“A man is a Professor, lovely girl,” he called over his shoulder. He hadn’t been ‘Professor’ to her for almost four years.
“What?” was all she could say to the door as it swung shut. To the empty pint glass on the table. She was shaking too hard to do anything else.
His lightning had burned her to cinders.
The humiliation had been beyond measure. Her heart was shredded, and the triumph of passing her viva, the culmination of four long years of struggling, was so much ashes in her mouth.
She had never hated a man more in that moment, or herself, for ruining such a victory in such a stupid manner.
After the night of the viva, when she had crawled out of her horror at herself and pulled out her head out of her ass long enough to feel something other than abject despair and humiliation, she had realised that time was running out for the post-doctoral application cycle. Reluctantly, but knowing she had no real choice, she had emailed to request for him to please fill out a reference section of an application, and had received an automatic out-of-office reply stating he was on sabbatical for the rest of next twelve months and would be unable to receive correspondence at this time, and should an urgent response be required, to please contact the department secretary.
She had sat stunned for a full ten minutes, unable to comprehend the gaping hole in her heart that his unexpected departure had left in her. He had left, without a word or explanation. The message didn't even say where he had gone.
She had never lost a best friend before. And she had never had her heart broken either. So much education her professor had given her, she had thought in a daze, as tears had filled her eyes, the screen blurred, and a moan of pure pain had escaped her lips.
She had resorted to his handsome best friend, asking him politely for a reference. She'd had many drinks in the pub with him and her professor, and had laughed at many of his most ribald jokes. His response had been strangely courteous and gentle, and he'd even asked if she was feeling well. She'd replied in a hollow tone, "Of course, Professor." And he'd looked smiled so sweetly and sadly at her for a moment that she'd fled before she could burst into tears. When the congratulatory letter arrived announcing she had been accepted for a post-doctoral position at the University of the Free North, she'd been so fucking grateful that she'd get to run away from the South and all its memories of her professor that she'd begun packing her belongings that very afternoon, determined to get started immediately.
She kept tabs on the her old department, and saw when it announced in glowing terms the following year that her former supervisor had received a major research grant to investigate an area around the Dothraki sea where the First Men were said to have originated. He would be on research for yet another year, far away from Westeros. She had felt the blow to the heart like a fist to the gut. She worked hard, grinding through research applications and publishing as though her life depended on it (it did: publish or perish was no joke). Trickles of grants came through, then a large one finally broke through to fund a major investigation at the fortress of Moat Cailin. She knew she was one of a scant lucky handful in Westeros to receive such a bounty. By then she'd taken every single step she could think to forget her former professor and get on with her life. She'd slept her way through a not unimpressive number of one night stands, and then woken up to find she had landed herself in some kind of on again, off again relationship with Gendry, who'd joined the Brotherhood of Diggers, a professional archaeological unit in the North.
"What was it you said last night?" Gendry had said one morning, as she had woken up from drinking way too much whisky in the pub again with the Brotherhood the night before. A used condom wrapper was stuck to her thigh. Ugh. He was sporting a massive morning woody and was rubbing it gently against her ass, and she wasn't really in the mood, but he was doing his best to convince her otherwise. She could still smell the whisky on his breath, and knew hers wasn't much better. Why had this seemed like a good idea, again? She really couldn't remember. Then he'd reached over to palm a nipple, pulled at it gently, and then took her ear into his mouth, lipping and then sucking at her sensitive lobe. Mmhm, she'd thought, her eyes slipping closed as she enjoyed the sensations. He was good with his hands... his lips... but she didn't want to get up to brush her teeth. Maybe if they didn't kiss...
"Valyrian is so weird," he continued. Her eyes popped open. "What? What did you say?" she replied, instantly wary.
"I said, Valyrian is so weird. You were muttering it on and off all night. It sounded like you were licking honey," he said with a chuckle as he ran his tongue up her neck. "That professor of yours must've really drilled that stuff into you."
After that, she didn't sleep in Gendry's bed if she could avoid it, but he didn't seem to mind. From all accounts, he had other beds he visited, and so was content that she liked to sleep in hers. And so what? Not every couple needed to be so close to each other. It didn't mean anything. And if she mumbled in Valyrian in her sleep, so what? It meant nothing at all.
‘Damn him anyway to the Dothraki sea,’ she had thought furiously every time she remembered the night of her viva, and she had taken her mattock rather viciously to a particularly difficult area of her trench. And resolved yet again to not think of him.
And now here he is, making her jump out of her skin and almost step on the bones of walls that were thousands upon thousands of years old, teasing poor Nymeria with the possibility of dried venison, and calling her lovely girl.
Which she has not missed. Not at all.
She stands before him, the conversation drying up, and she feels oddly naked, covered in dig dust and sweat, and buried under more than a few stratum of shame, regret, and anger. “So, I’m busy. Gendry’s my site manager. He’ll be happy to answer any more questions you may have about the dig. See you around, Professor.”
And with her dog following, she swiftly but calmly begins the walk towards her Jeep, avoiding trenches and features like a dancer in a complicated piece of choreography, nodding at her minions, answering a few questions, and putting off others for tomorrow. Then she's jumping here and there where needed, onto wooden planks as effortlessly and easily as an acrobat. She waves off everyone, then buckles Nymeria into her seat restraint with trembling fingers. She looks at how her nails are embedded with dirt. Nymeria licks her hands, but it brings her little comfort. She feels like he has seen all of her.
“I am not a coward,” she tells her dog. She looks into Nymeria's eyes, lays her forehead against her beautiful great head, and breathes for a moment. She feels strength pass from Nymeria to her, and is intensely grateful. Then Nymeria licks her mouth, and she laughs and pushes her away. "Horrible dig dog," she says, but she pulls out one of her favourite treats from one of her pockets: dried venison. Nymeria squirms with joy, and wolfs it down in a single bite.
Then she drives to her hotel. She swears she can feel his half-lidded, golden eyes tracking her all the way.