New Fic: Redemption, Draco/Luna
Title: Redemption
Chapter One: Ashes
Rating: R, eventually, though this chapter is PG
Setting: Post-battle, possibly epilogue compliant, but Astoria? Rolf? Who the hell are they?
Pairing: Draco/Luna
Summary: Draco discovers that redemption can be found in the oddest places.
A/N: I really wanted someone else to write this fic, because the one place I don't want to be is in Draco's head. Plus, having three multi-chapters going on at once is a very, very bad idea, right? But this particular plot bunny is as obnoxious as this story's protagonist. I have it plotted out and expect it to be about six to eight chapters.
The first time he ran into her, he didn’t have the courage to look her in the eyes. It was immediately after the battle, and she was huddled at the Ravenclaw table with a small group of that Dumbledore’s Army lot, mourning one of their members. Corner, wasn’t it? Draco was being smothered by his mother at the time, and even his father had an arm on his shoulder and an expression of shock on his face. Obviously not the time to try to make amends even if he had any plans of doing so, which he didn’t, thank you very much. It wasn’t his fault, after all. He hadn’t had any choice, had he? And hadn’t he done his best to make her imprisonment better than it might have been, sneaking extra bits of food on her plate and candles whenever he could manage it?
Still, it wasn’t lost on him, the contrast between them, with none of his former friends willing to meet him in the eye and all of her (numerous, apparently) friends running up to hug her, relieved to see her safe after having gone missing for so long. He had his family and he was alive-that was all that mattered, right? And no one seemed in any hurry to punish them or make them leave, so he considered that a bonus. Who needed friends, anyway? Not him. Certainly not. It wasn't as though he actually loved Crabbe and Goyle, was it? Ugh, Crabbe. Thinking of him made Draco's stomach roil uncomfortably. He'd been killed by his own fire, hadn't he? Draco had no reason to feel responsible, and yet...
Some images were difficult to get rid of, and he was afraid that one might visit him on his deathbed. Best to put it out of his mind and think of...well, something. Perhaps how good it would feel to sleep in his own bed that night, surrounded by his familiar things. As long as the Ministry didn't come to their senses and come pounding at the door of Malfoy Manor, that was.
How had it come to this, though? He used to be one of the most sought after people in the place, and she was supposed to be the oddest girl in school. Less than nothing, a half-blood, with her strange ideas and even stranger clothing and that mad father of hers. Was this going to be how it was for the rest of his life? An Untouchable, watching those idiot Gryffindors and their even stupider allies rub it his nose how brave and righteous and perfectly sickening they all were? He'd lived, and no one would ever know how impossible that had seemed for the last year, how hard it had been to keep the three of them safe under the circumstances.
Draco watched Luna as she wandered over to that stupid ginger clan, hugging each of them in turn as if she were a newly adopted daughter. He watched as she was allowed to touch the still form on the floor and then hug the walking and talking and grieving mirror image. It was so bloody unfair. Didn't anyone think to comfort him? He'd watched his closest friend burn, hadn't he? He was going to see that charred flesh for the rest of his life. Didn't anyone think to offer him-well, not hugs or pity or any of that rubbish, but just to say, 'Hey, man, I’m sorry about your friend, sorry you had to see that?'
Admittedly, his mother had--she'd hugged him hard enough to deprive him of breath and touched his face, examining it for injury, looking into his eyes and offering him absolution for everything he had done to stay alive. There was some satisfaction in knowing that he had that, at least, when Loony Lovegood had lost it years ago. Still, the images would stick with him for some time to come, especially over the next few months as he tried to come to terms with what he had done and who he was going to be in this brave new world that Potter had so kindly arranged for them, the wanker.
He didn’t even have the satisfaction of his hatred for 'The-boy-who-got-everything-handed-to-him' to comfort him. Not when he’d saved his life. Not when he’d announced in front of hundreds of people that he’d disarmed Draco in the most shameful manner. And what had all that meant, everything he’d said? Draco had been the Master, for a very short time, of the most powerful wand in the world? And he hadn’t even got the chance to use it? Maybe if he had, Draco could have been the one to get rid of the bastard, maybe people would be putting him on the cover of newspapers and magazines, maybe he wouldn’t be sitting at home feeling sorry for himself-he’d be out there living, lapping up the adulation. Maybe his letters to Goyle wouldn’t come back unopened. Maybe he wouldn’t get filthy looks every time he walked out onto the street.
Maybe he’d have a better idea of what to do with his life.
~~~~~~~~~~~
The next time he saw her was during one of his rare excursions to the Alley. He’d taken to traveling as inconspicuously as possible, a hood over his hair and only later in the evening, when it was easy to jump from shadow to shadow. It was hard for a Malfoy to keep a low profile, but he didn’t appear to be the only one trying to avoid recognition. Hoods and balaclavas seemed to be all the rage that particular summer, as people began to venture out of the woodwork.
He couldn’t avoid this journey, though, and it was one he’d like to have avoided very much. There just wasn’t anyone else, was there? Gregorovich was dead, his French counterpart wasn’t selling to anyone with a marked arm, but Ollivander, who had more reason to hate him than just about anyone in the world-had accepted his appointment. Without a wand, he was nothing. But oh, how he dreaded facing the man’s penetrating eyes.
When he walked in the door, however, he faced a different pair of equally unnerving eyes, ones he hadn’t been prepared to see, and he felt the guilt twisting his already upset stomach into knots.
She, more than anyone had the right to look at him with hatred, but to his surprise, beyond a widening of her already overlarge eyes, she didn’t do much. “May I help you?” she said, and he shook his head from confusion. She was working for the old man?
Well, it did make a strange sort of sense. They would have got to know each other during their weeks of confinement, wouldn’t they? And after, too, possibly. Not that either of them would have thanked him for introducing them.
“I...I have an appointment,” he said, summoning up as much dignity as he could muster. She simply couldn’t know how bad he felt. It would be...a weapon.
“Of course," she replied, watching him for a bit with that odd look he’d got used to seeing as he brought her meals. As if she was studying him, or trying to read his mind. After a moment, she disappeared into the back, bringing Ollivander with her. This brought on a whole new set of feelings Draco didn’t know what to do with, so he put her out of his mind for a time as he went about the business of picking a new wand. Or having one choose him, as the old man insisted.
He had to give him credit; it really seemed that the magic mattered more than the morality of it all, or at least he wasn’t being punished for his part in the man’s imprisonment. A couple of questions dipped uncomfortably close to his brief (unknowing) ownership of the elder wand, but if anyone was watching, which Luna certainly wasn’t) or eavesdropping (which she might have been, but she wasn’t making it obvious) they might have assumed that he hadn’t seen the old wandmaker since he was eleven.
Maybe they discussed him after he left, maybe they were cursing his very name together, but he walked from the place unscathed, unpunished, but very, very troubled.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He saw her again a few weeks later when he went shopping for books. He didn’t know why he had bothered, but the atmosphere at home had been so stifling that when he left he felt as though he had broken out of prison.
However, once he entered the familiar bookstore, he regretted it. The hood was stifling in the heat of the crowd, and as people recognized his features, their eyes immediately darted to his left forearm. He resisted the impulse to sneer and scorn them (as if they were guiltless, really) reminding himself that his position in these changing times was tenuous, at best.
He wandered through the stacks with no idea what he wanted, though the spellbooks brought with them a great deal of notice from the other patrons, who undoubtedly could not wait to go home and tell everyone they knew that the icklest Death Eater was still up to no good with cooking spells or something equally ridiculous. It was tempting to grab the most sinister dark magic book he could find and walk out of there with his head held high.
Which was he was so shocked to see Luna curled up on a chair, buried behind one of the books that he recognized from his father’s 'other' library. So surprised was he that for a moment he stood in front of her, wondering if the title was suddenly going to arrange itself into something more appropriate for a slightly loopy young Ravenclaw, perhaps 101 Uses for Snargaluff Venom or Love Spells for the Truly Adventurous.
It took him a moment to realize that she was watching him from the top of her book, her expression blank, more curious than suspicious. And then he very nearly laughed at the absurdity of him standing before her like a supplicant, the jailer presenting himself to his prisoner for penance. The words came out of his mouth before he could stop them.
“Interesting book you’ve got there, Lovegood.”
“It is, isn’t it?” she said, after taking a look at the title. Maybe he expected her to offer some sort of explanation or excuse, but she didn’t seem inclined to, so he wracked his brain for a moment, wishing he hadn’t said anything at all and wondering what on earth to say next. A curt dismissal would have come naturally, but as he’d been the one to approach her, it would have made him feel even more ridiculous to indulge in his usual defense mechanism.
And still she was watching him, her eyes disconcerting, very nearly unfocused but somehow giving the impression of superhuman clarity. She had that in common with her employer, he realized, and wondered what sort of unexpectedly powerful alliance he and his family might have inadvertently created.
"Might want to be careful," he finally added. "Pick up a book like that, and people might think you're up to no good."
"Would they?" she asked, looking around the bookstore as if she'd just realized that there were in fact, other people around them and that some of them were not even bothering to hide the fact that they were staring. "I'd always been under the impression that a thirst for knowledge is always an admirable thing."
"Not all knowledge is desirable. Some of it is dangerous." Was he really having this conversation, and within hearing range of complete strangers?
"Perhaps," she said, and looked at a spot somewhere to the left of his left ear. "There are some things I wish I didn't know, or rather some things I wish I could forget. But then I wouldn't be me, would I? Everything that has happened to me, everything I learned, has shaped me, strengthened me. It would be a shame to lose that, wouldn't it?"
"What if it made you weak, or made you see yourself as something you didn't want to be, would you change it then?"
Luna considered his question for a long moment. "No, I think I'd use that knowledge to see where I'd gone wrong and attempt to change for the better."
"Which you can't do reading books about the Dark Arts, or the people who embraced them."
She looked down at her book again, at the grainy photograph that couldn't quite hide the beauty of the fair young man, his smile radiant, the sun glinting off his hair and making him seem like one of those things Muggles called angels. He'd been a monster or a saviour, depending on who you asked, and Draco felt his stomach twist as he remembered how that photograph had made him feel as a child, taking pleasure in their physical similarities. He'd really thought the bastard had the right idea, hadn't he? He'd gone to sleep imaging himself as that man, or perhaps, even better, imagining a future where he'd had that kind of power, ushering in a new era of Wizard dominance, to the benefit of everyone but Muggles and those that stupidly tried to protect them. How ironic was it that he'd unknowingly held the source of the man's power in his very hand and thrown it away without a second thought?
"Mr. Ollivander tells me that perhaps we would do better to understand the thirst for power, so that we might better know how to fight those who seek it for their own self-interest."
"There's only one problem with that line of thinking," Draco said. "How do you know you won't abuse that knowledge?"
Luna looked back into his eyes, considering. "I don't. But I do know myself, and I've never been hungry for power. Love, yes, power no. Though perhaps wanting to be loved is a desire for admiration, and that could turn into a desire for power over others, of sorts. I don't care what people think of me, so much, but I wouldn't mind being liked a bit more."
Draco remembered the scene at the Great Hall and his momentary jealousy. His voice softened a bit as he found himself saying, "I don't think you have to worry about that, actually. I think you've got a lot more love than you realize."
"Perhaps so," Luna said, still watching him intently, giving him the urge to squirm and shift on his feet, though he resisted it and instead straightened his spine, forcing his face into its once familiar sneer. She changed the subject abruptly. "I've been meaning to ask you something for a few months, but I wasn't sure if sending an owl was a good idea. Is it possible that you've found a locket at your house? I haven't seen it since I left in such a hurry."
Draco drew back as if slapped. How dare she bring that up, and in a public place, too? Why not just announce it to the whole bloody world? And it wasn't as though he had snatched her, in fact, he had tried to help her. An insult was on the tip of his tongue.
"I wouldn't ask, but it belonged to my mother, and I feel quite lost without it," she said.
Anger was quite rapidly replaced with overwhelming shame, and suddenly her face, bathed in the sunlight from the window and glowing with health and vitality, faded from his eyes and became the one of his nightmares--wide eyed and sunken cheeked, unnaturally pale in the moonlight and marred with bruises. "I don't...I don't go down there. Ever."
"Oh," she said, and the disappointment on her face made him feel as though someone had stabbed him in the stomach.
"But I will," he said before he could stop himself. "There's probably nothing left there; the house elves cleaned it up, but I'll look."
"Thank you, Draco," she said, and the brilliance of her smile made him feel as though he'd been stabbed a second time. He dismissed her thanks with a disdainful wave and turned abruptly, desperate to get out of there and get the image of her face--both faces--out of his head for once and for all. Perhaps leaving the house had been a mistake. Perhaps he deserved having his own home turn into a prison, considering what had happened there. Fate---or whatever the hell it was that guided his life--seemed determined not to let him forget it.
Chapter One: Ashes
Rating: R, eventually, though this chapter is PG
Setting: Post-battle, possibly epilogue compliant, but Astoria? Rolf? Who the hell are they?
Pairing: Draco/Luna
Summary: Draco discovers that redemption can be found in the oddest places.
A/N: I really wanted someone else to write this fic, because the one place I don't want to be is in Draco's head. Plus, having three multi-chapters going on at once is a very, very bad idea, right? But this particular plot bunny is as obnoxious as this story's protagonist. I have it plotted out and expect it to be about six to eight chapters.
The first time he ran into her, he didn’t have the courage to look her in the eyes. It was immediately after the battle, and she was huddled at the Ravenclaw table with a small group of that Dumbledore’s Army lot, mourning one of their members. Corner, wasn’t it? Draco was being smothered by his mother at the time, and even his father had an arm on his shoulder and an expression of shock on his face. Obviously not the time to try to make amends even if he had any plans of doing so, which he didn’t, thank you very much. It wasn’t his fault, after all. He hadn’t had any choice, had he? And hadn’t he done his best to make her imprisonment better than it might have been, sneaking extra bits of food on her plate and candles whenever he could manage it?
Still, it wasn’t lost on him, the contrast between them, with none of his former friends willing to meet him in the eye and all of her (numerous, apparently) friends running up to hug her, relieved to see her safe after having gone missing for so long. He had his family and he was alive-that was all that mattered, right? And no one seemed in any hurry to punish them or make them leave, so he considered that a bonus. Who needed friends, anyway? Not him. Certainly not. It wasn't as though he actually loved Crabbe and Goyle, was it? Ugh, Crabbe. Thinking of him made Draco's stomach roil uncomfortably. He'd been killed by his own fire, hadn't he? Draco had no reason to feel responsible, and yet...
Some images were difficult to get rid of, and he was afraid that one might visit him on his deathbed. Best to put it out of his mind and think of...well, something. Perhaps how good it would feel to sleep in his own bed that night, surrounded by his familiar things. As long as the Ministry didn't come to their senses and come pounding at the door of Malfoy Manor, that was.
How had it come to this, though? He used to be one of the most sought after people in the place, and she was supposed to be the oddest girl in school. Less than nothing, a half-blood, with her strange ideas and even stranger clothing and that mad father of hers. Was this going to be how it was for the rest of his life? An Untouchable, watching those idiot Gryffindors and their even stupider allies rub it his nose how brave and righteous and perfectly sickening they all were? He'd lived, and no one would ever know how impossible that had seemed for the last year, how hard it had been to keep the three of them safe under the circumstances.
Draco watched Luna as she wandered over to that stupid ginger clan, hugging each of them in turn as if she were a newly adopted daughter. He watched as she was allowed to touch the still form on the floor and then hug the walking and talking and grieving mirror image. It was so bloody unfair. Didn't anyone think to comfort him? He'd watched his closest friend burn, hadn't he? He was going to see that charred flesh for the rest of his life. Didn't anyone think to offer him-well, not hugs or pity or any of that rubbish, but just to say, 'Hey, man, I’m sorry about your friend, sorry you had to see that?'
Admittedly, his mother had--she'd hugged him hard enough to deprive him of breath and touched his face, examining it for injury, looking into his eyes and offering him absolution for everything he had done to stay alive. There was some satisfaction in knowing that he had that, at least, when Loony Lovegood had lost it years ago. Still, the images would stick with him for some time to come, especially over the next few months as he tried to come to terms with what he had done and who he was going to be in this brave new world that Potter had so kindly arranged for them, the wanker.
He didn’t even have the satisfaction of his hatred for 'The-boy-who-got-everything-handed-to-him' to comfort him. Not when he’d saved his life. Not when he’d announced in front of hundreds of people that he’d disarmed Draco in the most shameful manner. And what had all that meant, everything he’d said? Draco had been the Master, for a very short time, of the most powerful wand in the world? And he hadn’t even got the chance to use it? Maybe if he had, Draco could have been the one to get rid of the bastard, maybe people would be putting him on the cover of newspapers and magazines, maybe he wouldn’t be sitting at home feeling sorry for himself-he’d be out there living, lapping up the adulation. Maybe his letters to Goyle wouldn’t come back unopened. Maybe he wouldn’t get filthy looks every time he walked out onto the street.
Maybe he’d have a better idea of what to do with his life.
~~~~~~~~~~~
The next time he saw her was during one of his rare excursions to the Alley. He’d taken to traveling as inconspicuously as possible, a hood over his hair and only later in the evening, when it was easy to jump from shadow to shadow. It was hard for a Malfoy to keep a low profile, but he didn’t appear to be the only one trying to avoid recognition. Hoods and balaclavas seemed to be all the rage that particular summer, as people began to venture out of the woodwork.
He couldn’t avoid this journey, though, and it was one he’d like to have avoided very much. There just wasn’t anyone else, was there? Gregorovich was dead, his French counterpart wasn’t selling to anyone with a marked arm, but Ollivander, who had more reason to hate him than just about anyone in the world-had accepted his appointment. Without a wand, he was nothing. But oh, how he dreaded facing the man’s penetrating eyes.
When he walked in the door, however, he faced a different pair of equally unnerving eyes, ones he hadn’t been prepared to see, and he felt the guilt twisting his already upset stomach into knots.
She, more than anyone had the right to look at him with hatred, but to his surprise, beyond a widening of her already overlarge eyes, she didn’t do much. “May I help you?” she said, and he shook his head from confusion. She was working for the old man?
Well, it did make a strange sort of sense. They would have got to know each other during their weeks of confinement, wouldn’t they? And after, too, possibly. Not that either of them would have thanked him for introducing them.
“I...I have an appointment,” he said, summoning up as much dignity as he could muster. She simply couldn’t know how bad he felt. It would be...a weapon.
“Of course," she replied, watching him for a bit with that odd look he’d got used to seeing as he brought her meals. As if she was studying him, or trying to read his mind. After a moment, she disappeared into the back, bringing Ollivander with her. This brought on a whole new set of feelings Draco didn’t know what to do with, so he put her out of his mind for a time as he went about the business of picking a new wand. Or having one choose him, as the old man insisted.
He had to give him credit; it really seemed that the magic mattered more than the morality of it all, or at least he wasn’t being punished for his part in the man’s imprisonment. A couple of questions dipped uncomfortably close to his brief (unknowing) ownership of the elder wand, but if anyone was watching, which Luna certainly wasn’t) or eavesdropping (which she might have been, but she wasn’t making it obvious) they might have assumed that he hadn’t seen the old wandmaker since he was eleven.
Maybe they discussed him after he left, maybe they were cursing his very name together, but he walked from the place unscathed, unpunished, but very, very troubled.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He saw her again a few weeks later when he went shopping for books. He didn’t know why he had bothered, but the atmosphere at home had been so stifling that when he left he felt as though he had broken out of prison.
However, once he entered the familiar bookstore, he regretted it. The hood was stifling in the heat of the crowd, and as people recognized his features, their eyes immediately darted to his left forearm. He resisted the impulse to sneer and scorn them (as if they were guiltless, really) reminding himself that his position in these changing times was tenuous, at best.
He wandered through the stacks with no idea what he wanted, though the spellbooks brought with them a great deal of notice from the other patrons, who undoubtedly could not wait to go home and tell everyone they knew that the icklest Death Eater was still up to no good with cooking spells or something equally ridiculous. It was tempting to grab the most sinister dark magic book he could find and walk out of there with his head held high.
Which was he was so shocked to see Luna curled up on a chair, buried behind one of the books that he recognized from his father’s 'other' library. So surprised was he that for a moment he stood in front of her, wondering if the title was suddenly going to arrange itself into something more appropriate for a slightly loopy young Ravenclaw, perhaps 101 Uses for Snargaluff Venom or Love Spells for the Truly Adventurous.
It took him a moment to realize that she was watching him from the top of her book, her expression blank, more curious than suspicious. And then he very nearly laughed at the absurdity of him standing before her like a supplicant, the jailer presenting himself to his prisoner for penance. The words came out of his mouth before he could stop them.
“Interesting book you’ve got there, Lovegood.”
“It is, isn’t it?” she said, after taking a look at the title. Maybe he expected her to offer some sort of explanation or excuse, but she didn’t seem inclined to, so he wracked his brain for a moment, wishing he hadn’t said anything at all and wondering what on earth to say next. A curt dismissal would have come naturally, but as he’d been the one to approach her, it would have made him feel even more ridiculous to indulge in his usual defense mechanism.
And still she was watching him, her eyes disconcerting, very nearly unfocused but somehow giving the impression of superhuman clarity. She had that in common with her employer, he realized, and wondered what sort of unexpectedly powerful alliance he and his family might have inadvertently created.
"Might want to be careful," he finally added. "Pick up a book like that, and people might think you're up to no good."
"Would they?" she asked, looking around the bookstore as if she'd just realized that there were in fact, other people around them and that some of them were not even bothering to hide the fact that they were staring. "I'd always been under the impression that a thirst for knowledge is always an admirable thing."
"Not all knowledge is desirable. Some of it is dangerous." Was he really having this conversation, and within hearing range of complete strangers?
"Perhaps," she said, and looked at a spot somewhere to the left of his left ear. "There are some things I wish I didn't know, or rather some things I wish I could forget. But then I wouldn't be me, would I? Everything that has happened to me, everything I learned, has shaped me, strengthened me. It would be a shame to lose that, wouldn't it?"
"What if it made you weak, or made you see yourself as something you didn't want to be, would you change it then?"
Luna considered his question for a long moment. "No, I think I'd use that knowledge to see where I'd gone wrong and attempt to change for the better."
"Which you can't do reading books about the Dark Arts, or the people who embraced them."
She looked down at her book again, at the grainy photograph that couldn't quite hide the beauty of the fair young man, his smile radiant, the sun glinting off his hair and making him seem like one of those things Muggles called angels. He'd been a monster or a saviour, depending on who you asked, and Draco felt his stomach twist as he remembered how that photograph had made him feel as a child, taking pleasure in their physical similarities. He'd really thought the bastard had the right idea, hadn't he? He'd gone to sleep imaging himself as that man, or perhaps, even better, imagining a future where he'd had that kind of power, ushering in a new era of Wizard dominance, to the benefit of everyone but Muggles and those that stupidly tried to protect them. How ironic was it that he'd unknowingly held the source of the man's power in his very hand and thrown it away without a second thought?
"Mr. Ollivander tells me that perhaps we would do better to understand the thirst for power, so that we might better know how to fight those who seek it for their own self-interest."
"There's only one problem with that line of thinking," Draco said. "How do you know you won't abuse that knowledge?"
Luna looked back into his eyes, considering. "I don't. But I do know myself, and I've never been hungry for power. Love, yes, power no. Though perhaps wanting to be loved is a desire for admiration, and that could turn into a desire for power over others, of sorts. I don't care what people think of me, so much, but I wouldn't mind being liked a bit more."
Draco remembered the scene at the Great Hall and his momentary jealousy. His voice softened a bit as he found himself saying, "I don't think you have to worry about that, actually. I think you've got a lot more love than you realize."
"Perhaps so," Luna said, still watching him intently, giving him the urge to squirm and shift on his feet, though he resisted it and instead straightened his spine, forcing his face into its once familiar sneer. She changed the subject abruptly. "I've been meaning to ask you something for a few months, but I wasn't sure if sending an owl was a good idea. Is it possible that you've found a locket at your house? I haven't seen it since I left in such a hurry."
Draco drew back as if slapped. How dare she bring that up, and in a public place, too? Why not just announce it to the whole bloody world? And it wasn't as though he had snatched her, in fact, he had tried to help her. An insult was on the tip of his tongue.
"I wouldn't ask, but it belonged to my mother, and I feel quite lost without it," she said.
Anger was quite rapidly replaced with overwhelming shame, and suddenly her face, bathed in the sunlight from the window and glowing with health and vitality, faded from his eyes and became the one of his nightmares--wide eyed and sunken cheeked, unnaturally pale in the moonlight and marred with bruises. "I don't...I don't go down there. Ever."
"Oh," she said, and the disappointment on her face made him feel as though someone had stabbed him in the stomach.
"But I will," he said before he could stop himself. "There's probably nothing left there; the house elves cleaned it up, but I'll look."
"Thank you, Draco," she said, and the brilliance of her smile made him feel as though he'd been stabbed a second time. He dismissed her thanks with a disdainful wave and turned abruptly, desperate to get out of there and get the image of her face--both faces--out of his head for once and for all. Perhaps leaving the house had been a mistake. Perhaps he deserved having his own home turn into a prison, considering what had happened there. Fate---or whatever the hell it was that guided his life--seemed determined not to let him forget it.