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Give it a week (Traveler & Too Many Thoughts)

He felt her breathing steadily against his chest. Her small hands were curled against him, and her knees were drawn up as if she sought to protect herself from the world. Every tiny stirring of her body felt sensual. She would move slightly, brushing against his thighs, or the crook of his neck, and it aroused him. The inappropriateness of his body's reaction was apparent to him. He knew that he shouldn't be feeling such things, but it had been a long time since he'd been physically close to a woman, and her warm, supple contact ws beginning to make him forget that he had just saved her less than 12 hours before.

Her fingers curled against his chest and sent small thrills across his skin. Soon she was whispering, her large eyes glancing around at his home as if she was seeing it for the first time.

"Emily," his voice was low and soft. "I would never lie to you, and I'd ask you to promise me the same." His hand smoothed over her back, his face close to hers. They were entwined intimately, their hearts beating less than a foot apart. He could feel every breath she took as her body shifted and swayed minutely on his lap.

"If you would trust me, completely...I think I could show you that there is a better way to live your life, and give you a new vision for your future."
 
Emily looked up into his face, only tensing for a moment when he began to speak because she had not been aware that he was awake. But she listened to him calmly, looked into his eyes. He had held her, promised to protect her, hadn't done anything to her while she had been sleeping. She felt save, for the first time in her life.

For a moment she thought about his words. Thought about what he had just offered her.

With a light nod she answered to his words. "I would like that...I always wanted to know that there has to be something better. But I gave up hope....I can't promise that it will be easy to convince me." She had no idea if her words even made sense. She wasn't even sure if they made sense to her. Deep down, she wanted to believe that there was something better in this life. That what she had seen in movies and read in books was true, that people could find love and happiness.
But the part of her soul that was deeply scarred and almost destroyed kept reminding her that she was not a lucky person. That she would get hurt again.

Her hand curled against his chest more, doing her best to push those dark thoughts away so she wouldn't be pulled down again. "It feels like I am drowning in bad thoughts and bad experiences. They won't let me go."
 
"You have to want to get better," he said, drawing his hand away from her body even though he wanted to touch her. Her back had felt nice against his palm, and the scent of his soap on her created a sensory intimacy that was deceiving. He had to find a way to help her achieve her own identity, apart from the things that had happened. "Whatever has happened in the past doesn't define who you are. It tells you what you've overcome." He shifted slightly, aware that the morning hours had prompted his body to do what normal, healthy men did in the mornings, and that the hardening of certain parts of his body could be misconstrued by a young woman who had been abused.

"Let's start off the morning with breakfast, and then clothes shopping. I have few calls to make before we leave town."

He shifted more and encouraged her to crawl off his lap. If she stayed on him any longer it would be nearly impossible to deny the fact that his body was quickly become aroused by hers. He didn't want to scare her into thinking that he was some kind of pervert who wanted to use her for his own desires.

A knock at the door interrupted anything that might have happened. Blake reached for his phone and swiped open the door app. On the other side of the wall stood Thomas. Oh shit. If he came personally to tell Blake the news then it couldn't be good. "I have to take this." He hopped off the couch and walked to the door, thankful that the briefs under his shorts were tight and would conceal most of his condition.

Thomas Thane's tall, muscular body almost filled the doorway. "You never could stay out of trouble," he said, walking in. He glanced over at Emily and then back to Blake. "I need to talk to you, but first, her -" he pointed at the redhead. "Who's this chick? Another one of your strays?"

Blake was stunned. What the fuck was his friend talking about? There had to be a reason that Thomas was coming on this strongly. "She's a friend."

"Oh yeah?" Tom walked towards the couch, pulling a chair from the dining table to sit on, much as Blake had done the night before. "If some chick's gonna shack up with my best friend I need to know some things about her. What's your name?" He sat on the chair and faced her. "You got some ID?"

Now it was beginning to make sense! The prints that Blake left outside the door last night...either then turned up 'something' or they turned up blank, and if there was no record of the girl's prints then it would make sense that Thomas would seek some ruse to find out more about the stranger.
 
Emily was stunned at what he said, that her past didn't define who she was but rather showed what she had survived. Still thinking about that new perspective, she crawled off of his lap when he nudged her and encouraged her to get off. She scooted into a corner of the couch, leaning against it as she pulled a blanket over her bare feet and legs. Without his warm body against her, she felt slightly cold.

The knock on the door had her flinching slightly, but she stayed calm and in her corner, watching how Blake walked to the door and opened it.
Her eyes widened at the sight of the huge, blonde guy walking into the apartment. When he pointed at her, she leaned back more, almost wishing the couch could swallow her, even more so when he came over and asked who she was.

"I...I didn't..." she stammered, hoping that the huge man didn't think she was some kind of prostitute and that she had slept with Blake.
"Emily" she finally replied, clasping her hands together tightly. Reminding herself of what Blake had said, that she was not defined by what others had done to her, that it only showed what she could survive. "Emily Foster."

She looked around for a moment. "My ID is in my purse...but...I don't understand why you would need it." She tilted her head, looking over to Blake and then back at the blonde man who had not introduced himself yet. "Did I do something wrong?"
 
"Did you?" Asked Thomas.

"No, you did not," answered Blake simultaneously.

They both glanced at each other, the frustration on Blake's face mirrored by suspicion on the the other man's.

"Are you even legal?" Thomas noticed the aforementioned purse on the side table and picked it up.

"Hey!" Emily's rescuer snatched it out of his friend's hand. "You don't just go into a woman's purse like that." He handed it back to Emily, though his eyes were still on Thomas. He noted the weight and condition and mentally kicked himself for not going through it when she was in the shower. He had forgotten all he knew about reconnaissance, and now he was certain that Tom would make him pay.

"Hey yourself," Thomas said as he crossed massive arms across his chest. "You'll thank me if she turns out to be a seventeen-year-old and I saved you from a statutory rape charge."

Blake sighed. Whatever his friend's angle that day, he would need to follow it. He could only blame himself by involving his overprotective but highly effective friend in the first place. "Emily...would you mind showing us your ID?"
 
Emily felt more and more uncomfortable in the presence of two men as intimidating as Blake and Thomas. Her eyes widened when Thomas just grabbed her purse, his sudden motion that went in her general direction made her flinch back, anticipating a hit.

Hesitantly she reached out to take her purse, that basically held everything that was dear to her. Things that she could not and would not leave behind at her parents place because she was afraid they would steal or destroy them.
She pressed the bag against her chest and watched the two men carefully now, like prey watching it's predators.

Her fingerprints would not have been in the system, because she had never done anything that would have gotten her arrested. When she had been five, she had asked a police officer at her school for help because her parents were hitting her. The officer had talked to her parents but had found nothing wrong, so he told Emily that lying was not okay.
Never again had she asked for help again.

Her fingers were slightly shaking as she unzipped her purse, the fake leather very old but luckily still holding together. She got out her ID from her wallet and laid it on the table, not comfortable with getting close enough to either of them to hand it to them.
"I did not lie to you. I am not a minor." She managed to say, then placed her purse on the table too. "Look through it if you want."

They would not find much in her purse. A small zipper bag with her toothbrush and other toileteries, another zipper bag with three panties in them. A very small, very old teddy bear. Her wallet with a five dollar note in it but nothing else. She did not even carry a phone with her.

Emily was close to tears, the situation way too much for her to handle. She had thought she could trust Blake, but he obviously didn't trust her. It was like the situation with the policeman all over again. He wasn't believing a word she said.
"I'll get dressed." Her voice was more than quiet, breaking a little because she had gotten her hopes up that maybe, finally, someone would believe and help her.
With the blanket pulled tightly around her thin body, she got up and silently walked over to the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind her. She just went over to the bathtub and slid down to the floor, trying to think clearly.

What was her plan now? Well, she could just wait for Blake and his friend to leave or be distracted, then she could go back to the bridge.
He had asked her to trust him, but how could she do that if he didn't trust her back?
She rubbed her face, feeling the tears slowly spill down her cheeks. It was time now, she had known it last night and she knew it now. It was time for her to go.
 
"Sometimes your tactics are really asinine," Blake said to Thomas once Emily was left the room. He had seen the way her eyes watered, so close to breaking into tears, but somehow managing to remain composed. That only came with practice. Her kind of pain ran deep, and Tom had just destroyed any headway Blake had managed over the night.

"They work." Thomas snapped a photo of Emily's ID. "She doesn't have a driver's license and this card is two years expired." He flipped the ID over to look at the back, then slid the card towards Blake. "No prints, no work history, no missing person's case. But we have a school and they might have a last-known-address, so we can get a few questions answered about your mystery woman."

Blake made a hmpfh sound at the back of his throat. "I'm almost sorry I brought you into this."

"Well, don't be. It's better to be safe than sorry, and she looks about sixteen, so I don't blame you." He drew a breath in and glanced towards the bathroom door. "Good luck."

"Yeah, thanks."

"You ship out in ten days."

"I know." Blake regarded Thomas. They'd gone through camp together, grown up in the same town, and fought over the same cheerleaders. IF anyone was like a brother to him, Tom was the one. "A lot of good can happen in ten days. I'm going to do what I can and not worry about it until it happens."

Tom seemed doubtful, but he nodded and smacked Blake on the shoulder before leaving. Pain lasted longer than hugs. He wanted his friend to remember that, even if he couldn't see him, Thomas was always at his side in spirit.

Blake walked over to the bathroom door and knocked softly with the back of his hand. "Emily? Hey...I'm really sorry for how that came around. I can't even give you a reason for the rudeness. Just know that it's not anything about you, so much as that I've made a few mistakes and Thomas is looking out for me." He sighed and leaned his forehead against the door frame. "

"Come on out, Hon. Let's have breakfast like we planned and then make a trip to the stores - you'll need some different clothes for our road trip, and I think that the sooner you see other places the better. We both need a change of scenery."
 
Emily lifted her gaze from the floor to the door when Blake spoke to her through it. He apologized, but did he truly mean it? She wasn't sure about that. She wasn't sure about anything anymore.

She picked herself up from the floor and went over to the door, opening it. She just stood there, shoulders slumped forward, the blanket no longer around her frail figure. "You said I should trust you" she finally spoke up, looking into his face. "But you don't trust me. You don't believe a word I said last night. I don't know what to make out of this."

For a moment she just looked at him, trying to read his mind. "If you still want to do this road trip...then I need to know that my trust in you is returned. I..I can't go on a trip with you knowing that you don't believe me and don't trust me. I am not a minor, I don't want to get you into any trouble. And I didn't ask for you to save me."

After saying those things, she realized that she had probably been very rude. Her gaze dropped, ashamed of her honesty and being so blunt. "I am glad you did. I guess, at least. But...I didn't do that to get you into trouble."
 
"You... Emily," Blake drew in a lungful of air and then slowly released it, waiting to hear her her out as she repeated that she didn't think that he trusted her. He didn't understand how she got to that conclusion from what had just happened, but it seemed to him that she interpreted Thomas's actions for his and didn't differentiate between the actions of one man or another. Either she had been abused or she was suffering from mental illness. Or both. Either way, he realized that he had a sensitive case in his care, and he needed to tread carefully lest she decide to go over the deep end again.

"Emily, I'm glad I saved you too. Every life has purpose and meaning, and that includes your life. As for getting me in trouble, well...you didn't. It's just that Thomas and I go back a long way. He's looking out for me. It's not that we, or I, don't trust you. It's that trust is a vulnerable thing, Em. Have you ever heard the phrase 'Trust but verify?' It means that you have to not let yourself be blinded by trust when the stakes are important, and you are important. If you were an at-risk minor I needed to know."

He leaned against the door jamb and resisted the urge to cross his arms over his chest. The body language would have been closed off. Instead, he slid his thumbs into the pockets of his pants and stood for a moment to let his words sink in. "I really want to make this trip with you. I need it, and maybe you do too." He smiled, looking at her disheveled hair, the blanket wrapped around her waist, and the way she looked back at him. "I don't want there to be this barrier between us so I want to give you this promise, okay? You can ask me anything, anytime, and I promise that I will answer as truthfully as I can. I want you to know that."

He sighed and then pushed himself off the door with a shrug. "So...want to get changed so that we can get out of here?"
 
This constant up and down of her feelings, the feeling of not knowing if she could truly trust Blake and finally the feeling of not belonging anywhere in this world was almost too much for Emily to take. His explanation made sense and the fact that he took his time to stand with her and explain calmly instead of blowing up at her, spoke for itself.

"I'll be right out" she promised quietly but managed a soft smile at Blake. She closed the door and let the blanket fall from around her. Emily brushed her teeth and combed her hair, then put the clothes on she had worn the day before. Maybe this road trip would truly be good for her. She had no clue why Blake said he needed the trip too, but maybe she could figure it out. It gave her something to think about besides her own misery.

After a few minutes she emerged from the bathroom, folding the blanket neatly as she walked back to the living room. She had folded the t-shirt she had used to sleep and placed it on the rim of the bathtub.
"I'm ready Blake" she announced to him after placing the blanket on the couch, making sure everything was as sorted and neatly as it had been when she had arrived at his place. It was almost as if Emily was trying to make sure she wouldn't leave any kind of footprint behind in her own life. As if she wanted to make sure no one knew she existed. And it was not even something she was aware of, she did that for years.
 
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