I Know She's Gone

"I Know She's Gone" is a November 17, 2014 thread in Season 2.
== Summary ==
== Full Text ==
Vox Arnason: He’d spent all this time rebuilding a home for himself, as the one he had before his banishment to the dungeon had been desecrated by the Warden and her containment forces.
It wasn’t anything aesthetically pleasing; in fact, it was a fairly worn eyesore of a dwelling, but it was incredibly sound and would perform the functions he needed to live. The weeks following his reunion with Tree and the rebels felt like an eternity, but it gave him all the time he needed to take care of business on his end.
The location of this residence was the only true selling point of the institution. Built on a hill overseeing much of the Wilderwest, it allowed Vox an escape from the turmoil of day-to-day life…
…and should all play out as he would hope, he would be able to escape there with Tree.
This is what I missed, Vox thought as he overlooked the scenery before him. All that time away, and what I wanted most was to be able to feel the wind as I looked out at my home.
He got lost in the beauty of it all, before he heard footsteps crunching leafs behind him.
Treepelt Halfpaw: Treepelt couldn’t stay away. She knew she was trying to keep him safe, she justified every reason to keep her distance, but in the end, she couldn’t just leave. She poked around the rebels asking for Vox, and they told her he’d been gone a lot, somewhere out in the woods, and she followed the vague direction they pointed her in until she spotted him, next to a little ramshackle dwelling that appeared to have been constructed by hand…by himself. 
She carefully walked up beside him and hugged herself, looking out over the landscape, and said nothing, just drank in his presence. But she didn’t allow herself to touch him. There was no way she could trust herself, not now. 
Vox Arnason: Her breath was enough to give her identity away. He didn’t even have to turn around to confirm who it was — they’d spent so much time with one another in the dungeon that he knew the tone of her deep respirations. It couldn’t have been anyone else.
"Hey, stranger."
He didn’t turn to see her, hoping it would draw her in to sit with him. He didn’t want to scare her off; he knew how tender everything was. Her track record as of late in terms of physical company wasn’t exactly held in high regard. She was wary of harming him again, and he would be lying if he didn’t say that he felt that way as well.
"It’s cold out here. Come sit with me."
Treepelt Halfpaw: Treepelt bit her lip and edged over to him, retracting her claws so hard that it began to strain her muscles. She tentatively sat near him, close enough to feel the heat coming off of his body from the hard labor he’d surely been doing before she’d arrived. “What are you doing out here?” Then, feeling the question was needless, she added, “I mean, out here. In the…in the cold. By…by yourself.”
Vox Arnason: "Heh, it’s a funny thing."
He reached to grab her arm, pulling her to sit next to him. Draping his arm around her, he nestled his head in the crook of her neck.
"All this work makes me incredibly warm. The cooler weather feels great." He played with her hands in his, fidgeting and meticulously shaping them. "That, and I wanted to see if I could get you to show up if you saw me freezing and alone."
Treepelt Halfpaw: The contact made her stiffen at first. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d been this close…not since they had reunited at the lake. It caused guilt to spring inside of her for staying away for so long. She pressed her forehead into the top of his head and shut her eyes tightly, hands still shaking with the effort of keeping her claws retracted. “You’re not…” She gulped and started over. “You’re not scared of me?”
Vox Arnason: "…oh, Tree."
Vox ran his fingers through her hair, nuzzling his nose against her cheek. He scratched at her scalp behind her ears, taking care to not startle her.
"It was never you that I was afraid of… well, not you, per say. The Warden was the cause of everything we went through. I would never for a second hold it against you.”
He felt her pain. The tension she harbored was almost physically manifested. She shook with uneasiness and fear.
He couldn’t stand to see her so scared.
Treepelt Halfpaw: His soft voice, his gentle touch, it all felt so right that all of Treepelt’s reservations disappeared and she melted into him, curling into his shoulder. Her cheek rested right against his heart, right over the place where…she didn’t want to think about it. Treepelt touched his chest gingerly and her claws seemed to ram through his flesh and into his beating heart again. She blinked and the sudden flashback dissipated.
"I know she’s gone," she whispered, "but I still get nightmares…I wake up and I swear I can still smell your blood…I still feel like she’s going to come back…I still feel like she’s here…”
Vox Arnason: "I completely understand."
He shifted his weight to face her, though she kept her gaze averted to the best of her control. He couldn’t stand to have her hold such reservations around him. With the past year changing their lives completely, Tree was all that Vox had.
"I still have nightmares. There are nights where I don’t sleep, because I don’t want to have that happen to me again, even if it’s not real. I’m not the person I was after all that…"
He looked away and to the ground. This isn’t helping her feel better.
"I’m sorry, Tree… this isn’t your fault. I just have some things I need to work out. It may take a while for me to get back to where I was before this all happened — to where I’m able to talk about it without shaking."
Treepelt Halfpaw: Treepelt’s throat closed up and she nodded shakily, pulling away from him again and sitting hunched over. “So…so is that it?” she managed to get out. “We just…avoid each other until we feel better? That’s the solution?” She didn’t mean for any bitterness to crawl into her tone but she couldn’t help it. Everything frustrated her. She had forgiven the Warden…or so she thought. All of the events in the past had driven wedges into their relationship, ones that she was afraid they would never be able to remove. 
Vox Arnason: Fuck.
He should have watched his phrasing. He let his emotions get the best of him. That isn’t what I want.
I don’t want a world without Tree.
"Look, that’s not what I meant. I figured you’d know me better than that by now. If I let you walk away from here without any resolution, there isn’t going to be anything to build off of. We have to deal with this. Right here, right now."
He moved himself to her, negating her attempts at separating the two of them.
"Please don’t leave me alone."
Treepelt Halfpaw: "What if that’s the only way?" Her shoulders were shaking now. "Everyone I get close to gets hurt! I kept everyone in the dungeon for almost a year! Emily nearly killed Akkey! I trapped people in the labyrinth! I mauled Clover! And..and then…" Her voice shut down again and the tears began to fall. "Vox, I—I love you, but—I don’t know—I don’t know if—" The cool air stung on her suddenly heated cheeks as she buried her head in her arms and pulled her knees to her chest, trying to hold it all back and failing miserably. "I c-can’t watch you get h-hurt again."
Vox Arnason: What can I say?
Nothing is going to make this okay for the moment.
Vox lowered his head to meet her eyes, now swollen and red from the tears she was fighting. He had to keep her attention. She had to listen.
"There was no way you could have known what was going to happen to any of us… what was going to happen to me."
He ran his fingers from the front of his scalp to the back, sighing heavily and looking out once more to the scenery before him.
"We spent nearly a year together in the dungeon. There were times when our friends told me to let you go… they were convinced that you were beyond help, and that it wasn’t fair for me to subject myself to that level of emotional instability.
Well guess what, Tree? I’m still here, and you’re as beautiful as the day I lost you to the Warden.”
He lifted her chin to see her face once more. Those eyes were still hers, and her tears left trails down her face. He was so glad to see her expressing those feeling to him. It was far better than letting them manifest into something far more dangerous.
He brought his lips to hers and allowed himself to get lost in a kiss that had been long overdue.
Treepelt Halfpaw: She slowly stopped shaking and crying as he spoke to her, and then his hand tilted her face to his and they met in a kiss even warmer than the one at the lake. Treepelt slid a hand to the back of his head, letting their contact continue for a few more seconds before she broke away, keeping her forehead pressed to his, noses brushing. There was a single question left on her mind that she needed to know the answer to.
"And if she does come back?" she whispered. "If she hasn’t really changed, if she isn’t sorry? What then?"
Vox Arnason: Vox wished he’d had an answer for her right then.
He wish he knew what to say to make her inhibitions go away.
"I don’t know, Tree. But neither of us are going to be able to move on with our lives if we don’t accept that this isn’t going to be easy. There are going to be days that we wonder why we even try anymore. You could just as easily have left me in Hel and gone on with your life… but you didn’t."
He stood up, reaching out a hand to help her to her feet.
"Let’s go inside before we freeze to death out here."
Treepelt Halfpaw: Accepting his proffered hand, she stood and then socked him lightly on the arm with her free hand, giving him a watery smile. “Not a chance, hoodie. No way I could’ve left you down there.” She entwined her fingers in his and pressed close to him as she walked back with him, grateful to have her broken heart mended, if only for the moment. 
Treepelt tilted her head up to his ear and he bent down slightly to accommodate her. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Vox Arnason: Vox grinned, taking the moment to appreciate having the Treepelt that he had fallen in love with back again.
"Don’t mention it."
This had been the first time in months, since before the rebellion, that things were like this… since they had any sense of normalcy in their relationship.
He could get used to this.
Category:Season 2
Category:Events
Category:Vox Arnason
Category:Treepelt Halfpaw
Category:BOTGD