Time is all around, except inside my clock

[changingtheodds]

Ruvin has had several very startling realizations. The first, she's almost seventeen. In just under a week, she will be. She'd all but forgotten about birthdays.

The second--she's been in Chicago for a year, as of today. She's paused where she is, in the middle of crossing a street to look up at the sky in surprise.

Winny is standing in front of

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[rattle_thecages]

Rachel was picking something up for Rosie and is just now exiting the pet store, waving to the kind man that helped her at the counter.

She hasn't spotted him yet, or she wouldn't be smiling.

She's smiling to herself, head bowed, as if she has a secret. She doesn't. She's just content.

[silkandstone]

Well.

Well.

What an unexpected surprise.

"Rachel. You're looking well."

[rattle_thecages]

There is hardly a reaction. Shock doesn't allow her to have much of one. Her heart is hammering inside her chest but Rachel does not turn around at the sound of his voice at first.

"No thanks to you." She turns on her heel, not moving an inch. She meets his eyes. "In front of the world, whoever is watching. I will rip your heart out if you come near me again."

[silkandstone]

He takes a step forward and spreads his hands wide. "Do it."

There's something in the reaction that forces that particular coldness on him, that still victory that comes before tearing a victim's--a guest's--hopes apart. "Kill me, and remember how death feels."

[rattle_thecages]

She's survived him. She fears him. Anyone who says they are not scared of Clark and what he is capable of is a liar or a fool. She takes a step forward to meet him (East is East, and West is West...), unsure of how she's going to strike and only knowing she wants to. After all he's done, and doesn't give a damn about--he's walking. He's a free man. He's free. "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field."

A little girl exiting the pet store intercepts Rachel, running past them to cross the street, shrieking happily. It stops Rachel dead in her tracks. She looks back up at him, calmer than before. Calmer and always something else. He can't, can't win, even if it means she yields right now. "I'll meet you there."

[silkandstone]

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.

Den's chin lifts, a brief signal of surprise.

Rachel Dawes has more steel in her than he realized. More strength than he gave her credit for. There's something in her he neglected to notice and that--

That is absolutely fascinating. "Miss Dawes," he murmurs. "You... are singular."

It's a compliment, he realizes. She might not see it as such, but it is. Privately, briefly, he allows himself the hope that she might see it as just that.

Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other" doesn't make any sense.

Singular indeed.

[rattle_thecages]

Chaos and determination war inside her, crowding her chest and swarming her ribcage. She breathes the chaos in.

Back to Miss Dawes. She knows something has shifted. "Your admiration didn't and will never save me. I said that to you once. How easy it would be to allow what you have done to me consume me for the rest of my life."

Another step forward. Legs are seized muted tremors but they keep moving.

"And yet." And yet. "All those things you nearly took from me in seven days, all those things you consider valueless and foolish--you will never understand them and what they make of me because they do not hold your interest. Those things are the reason I am still standing here. Refusing to cower in front of you, unable to kill you as you've baited me to. Knowing for today you will walk away a free man when you belong behind bars." I'll meet you there. "Knowing if you wanted to, no matter how I call for help in the next minute, this next second, you could take my hand, press your lips on my wrist, and start it all over again